There is an aspect of my life that is oh so “Little House on the Prairie.” My father built our house single-handed, with help from his brothers to hoist the rafters. My father was a World War II veteran. He began the war with one of the cushiest jobs in the military: making sure those Germans followed the Geneva Convention when it came to chemical warfare. They did. That made my Dad’s job pretty easy; hang out in Edinburg, Scotland while most the other men were away at the front. He made lifelong friends and had a great time despite rations. Then one of his brothers was injured in Belgium. My father, Robert William “Bob” O’Neal, was the oldest of five tall, strapping brothers. He always felt responsible for the welfare of his younger siblings, so when Uncle Jim was hurt, he raised his fists and swore he was going to go out and get those Germans. Now it was personal. He volunteered for the infantry and became a front-line troop. “Saving Private Ryan,” he said, was the closest of all the war movies to his experience. So I guess you could say my childhood home was built by a war hero.
The style was one-story mid-century modern. My mother, with whom my father fell in love at first sight when she floated down the stairway of her sorority house at the University of Illinois in a borrowed dress, grew up a few blocks away in a 1920s two-story at 933 Greenwood.
Although I have spent most of my life in Texas, having moved to San Antonio at age 8, once the internet became a viable tool, I would check virtually to see how the homes at these two addresses were doing. I did go back in person once in the early 2000s and basked in the glow of both my childhood home and my grandparents’ house.
One day, when virtually checking on the houses I saw that my little mid-century modern was no more. Instead, a lot line to lot line monstrosity selling for $1.6 million sat in its place like a grackle in a song bird’s nest. It was as though something had been torn from me. The gone-ness of it left an empty space in my heart as if a window had been broken and the cold north wind had nothing to hold it back.
This was the place of my first memory: my second birthday. My father was supposed to be watching me while mom put finishing touches on dinner and cake. I remember him holding me on one arm, a brown beer bottle in the other hand. He was standing in a circle laughing with his brothers. Then he put me down. I remember looking way up at my father and uncles standing as I was so very near the ground. Suddenly, freedom called. I toddled down the sidewalk until I encountered a strange beast. The thing is, I recall not having words to describe in my mind what it was I was looking at. Now I realize the creature was a dog. In this case, a dalmatian with its black and white speckles. But in my two-year-old mind, it was an unidentifiable mythical beast. When in Genesis, Adam was invited to name the animals, this naming shows a shift in thinking. Once you have named something, it somehow loses its mystery and its power. I had not lost that yet. And I had no fear. The other being came at me making a loud noise. If I call that noise barking, well there goes the power of that noise. Its just a thing now. A categorized sound.
I stood there, making mystical contact with the beast until my father scooped me up, taking me home for cake. It was probably only a few minutes, but I still remember the russet color of the heavy front door. And how on the white garage door, my parents had painted each of the panels a different color. Inside, there was the kitchen mural my artistic mother painted. And the glittery bright red swivel chairs we’d perched upon at the breakfast bar. There was the boot room with coat hooks before the kitchen and the dining room after to the left. To the right was the living room where the Christmas tree would stand. And on the far side, before the hall to the bedrooms was a blonde wood hi-fi on a spindly legged black lacquer table. Years were spent sitting under that table listening to records like Annie Get Your Gun and Doris Day. Once in the hall, my parents room was on the right and two children’s rooms on the left with the one bathroom in between. My mother held a firm belief in wall paper. The master had gigantic green leaves of the sort you’d only find in the 1950s. The girl’s room had diminutive flowers in rows. Then there was my brother’s room. Unfortunately, he was the only boy, so he got the crib with the youngest at the time in it. How many memories I could share… but perhaps I should stop with the first one. When I try to tell my precious grand daughter about the past, I find she really isn’t all that interested. Maybe in the year 2045 she’ll discover this blog and wish I had shared a few more.