The House That Built Me

Do you ever drive down the road and its so quiet in the car you reach over and turn on the radio (of course I am talking when you have no kids in the car as I have found it nearly impossible to be in the car and have total silence with kids unless of course they have fallen asleep… at least with my little darlings anyway)?  I have done this numerous times, in fact more than I can remember. 

I have found that as I listen to music even when I was still a young age, it has had a calming effect on me.  It does not matter if the music that The Eagle is playing (of course, I have every preset set to 101.5 or 106.9—the story behind that will have to be another blog entry), the instrumentals on the commercials for the most annoying fab toy that your five year old “just has to have”, or something you are listening to while your darling future musician is practicing the tuba, but in reality is sounding as if they are shoving the helpless family cat down the bell of the tuba. All different types of music seem to have a different effect of everyone… both good and bad. 

Just the other day I was in the car by myself- a real treat- as I can easily lose myself in deep thoughts when it is so quiet.  I reached down and turned on the radio.  A few moments later Miranda Lambert’s “The House That Built Me” started to play.  This was right after the radio DJ was talking about his darling young son and latest little thing he had accomplished whether his wife liked it or not.  Of course, I was already laughing out loud after hearing what a three year old is capable of accomplishing when mommy’s back is turned. A smile came across my face as I sang to the song that now had all my thoughts on it.  

I remember the house I built me, the house where I grew up …. 1424 North 630 West.  This is the house my parents had lovingly built together back in the early 80’s.  I remember our house was one of the first homes to be built in the subdivision so there was a lot of dirt around the yard and a big field across the street in which we used to pretend was where the aliens (neighbors) from down the street would keep their spaceship.  There were six bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large fruit room, cool little hiding places throughout like the linen closets in the bathrooms or the “monster hide-out” under the stairs just off the laundry room in the basement.  I remember playing hide and seek and actually hiding on the shelves of the fruit room and asking my sisters to put mom’s famous bottles of peaches in front of me so no one would find me.

There are so many memories from that house and neighborhood:  where I met most of my childhood friends, where my dad would run after me as he was frantically teaching me to ride a two- wheeler bike yet making sure I did not go in the street as I did not comprehend how to use the brakes,  where we used to get on the family sled and dad would hook it up to the ‘ole pick up truck and pull us around the neighborhood, where we would call grandpa and sweetly ask: ‘grandpa, can we come down to visit you and grandma?’ Grandpa always would come up with the wheelbarrow and let us kids pile in it and then wheel us back to his house a few blocks away.  This is also the house where when my sisters and I got older, we helped my dad finish off the family room together.  Aww, this house holds so many sweet memories of my childhood.  After all, this is the house that I grew up in and also the house that built me into the person that I am today.