We used to own, my family that is, a small cottage, in Connecticut, about 3 miles from the beach. We spent our summers there and many weekends over the winter. It's one of those things I didn't appreciate. And I didn't like the drive from NY.
My brother owns the property now. When my parents bought a property closer to the beach, they didn't want to part with it for sentimental reasons. So they rented if for years, until disrepair and time made it less sentimental and my dad thought he could muster the heart (or lack) to sell it. My brother decided to take it, but the home was judged not worth saving, by someone, and so it was wrecked and he built a new house deeper back in the property.
But I think they should have saved it.
He built a new house in our whiffle ball field, and to get the trucks back there they cut down the lower branches of an oak tree we used to climb, and so now it can't be climbed anymore. Had he no sense of what was important?
But I guess I have no right to say anything. I didn't want to pay for it. I live so far away I couldn't have used the place. Better, I guess, than selling the entire property to someone else (except maybe if they would have saved the house).
When we bought it in 1973 it was already over 100 years old. It had termites, worth saving then, though.
By the time it was wrecked it was probably 130 years old at least (I don't know exactly). I live in a house now that was built in 1932, in a neighborhood full of these kinds of houses. There is something to be appreciated about such landmarks. They are history, and not just my history
It had all the cute old features classic old homes have now that people appreciate in the city I live in, built ins, hardwoods. It had a porch, enclosed, but not well insulated. The whole house wasn't well insulated. The glass windows showed distortion when you looked through them, like the glass was made by hand. A beveled glass paneled door opened up into the porch. There was one bathroom, with one of those old claw foot baths, and no shower. The bathroom wasn't level either, it sloped down towards the back. The water came into the pipes from a dug well, and we had to be careful not to run it dry.
I guess I was 9 when we first bought the place and I didn't want to go there. There was no TV in Connecticut! (you could get one but my parents wouldn't). Me and my brothers didn't know what to do with ourselves, being city boys. We used to sit out at the road and watch cars going by. We moved on to climbing trees, exploring the woods, and riding bikes. My mom would barbeque, that's what we call grilling in the north (in the south, where I now live, barbeque has a more specific meaning). She wasn't cooking with gas either, she did it the hard way.
My mom read us all The Wizard of Oz in that house. I can close my eyes and see myself sitting in the big comfortable lounge chair towards the back of the living room, with a lamp light on, reading all of the rest of the Oz series books and then moving on to science fiction. I can smell that house, still, and feel the humidity of sitting inside on a rainy day.
We had my dad's office parties up there, we had people visit, who later bought their own houses in the area. I skipped my High School Prom, and me and a buddy got up early the next morning after graduation and went up there to celebrate our freedom, and our adulthood. We rode our bikes. We hung out late. We played two person poker with the door open. A breaze of invigorating night air rode in with our futures.
Later, one January, after I left College as a Jr. and was trying to decide what to do next (I recall now all of a sudden that I briefly considered taking up the drums again), I borrowed the family car and stayed up there by myself. I bought some cherry scented tobacco, I believe (I would recognize it if I smelled it), and smoked a pipe. I played drums and I also was keeping a journal. I went to the movies. It snowed. A friend visited me while I was up there.
I have a hard time getting rid of things that have sentimental value.
But my brother built a nice modern house, modern in the way new houses should be modern, extremely energy efficient. He got an expert from Vermont who builds these kinds of houses to help. It's got thick insulated walls, and some sort of water heating and cooling and hardly has to use any electricity at all. The attic doesn't even get hot.
Seems like writing is often about saying goodbye to something, lately. Though it feels like I'm also saying hello, somehow.