Thursday, August 18, 2011

#238: It Was the Point of Beginning


After fifteen years, I am done with Baldwin. I have all the pictures I need and my reasons for going down there have been reduced to just about nothing. The house that has been in my family for forty plus years and where my grandparents lived until their death will no longer be in my family. What will happen to the house, I don't know. It was nothing special but to a good majority of my family it was home. I went down this last Sunday to see if there was anything I wanted to get and to take pictures. The house needs work, both inside and out, and to be perfectly honest, keeping the house standing may not be financially feasible for whoever buys the house. But the house also sits on a lot of land and that may be the biggest draw for someone wanting to buy.

My grandparents moved to the house in 1971 after apparently moving to Baldwin from Lawrence after, as my Grandpa so lovingly put it to the Reverend doing my Grandma's eulogy, "the niggers burned down the union." And there they stayed until my Grandma passed away in 2003 and my Grandpa followed in 2006.

The front of the house. Like I said, it needs work. The wooden porch was built shortly before my Grandma's death on top of the concrete steps which can be seen when you are standing on the porch. Off to the right is the garage which at one point was very cluttered with hundreds of tools and your basic junk. We cleaned it out a bit but last I knew it was still pretty messy.

This is the southwest corner of the house and where my grandparents bedroom was. Inside the bedroom is the most awesome green shag carpet you have ever laid eyes on. I always forget that there is this little bit of brickwork on this corner of the house, clearly indicated the room was supposed to be a sun room or enclosed back porch and not a bedroom.

A view of the clothesline and shed with the evergreen tree that is now being absorbed by another tree or bush that is growing out of control.

The cement ramp up into the shed with mine and my cousin's handprint. Mine, I'm assuming, is on the right above the "B" and my cousin's is on the left.

The dog pen. This was where my grandparent's dog and my aunt's dog, Chief and Bowser, were housed for years. After the dogs died, their doghouses stood abandoned and a tree branch actually fell on one of the houses. Someone carted away the houses leaving the area within the chain-link fence to grow wild. Now, part of the tree has fallen on the fence nearly bringing the fence down as well.

Under this tree is the Hall Pet Cemetery where about a dozen or more animals are buried.

I wish I had gotten to know my grandparents better. I spent nearly the entire summer of 1995 with my Grandma but I didn't really know much about her past. The big thing I remember was she chased after Elvis after a concert and didn't catch him only because a necklace she was wearing broke sending beads or pearls everywhere. I knew even less of my Grandpa until recently. He could barely hear so you constantly had to repeat everything you said to him. When he met my friend Nathan, my Grandpa ended up calling him "Muffin." I learned a few years ago that he attended school in a one-room schoolhouse--I love one-room schoolhouses!! Someday I plan on visiting Elmer just to look around at where my Grandpa hung out when he was a lad.

There is not a day that goes that I don't think about them. We all miss them.

Me with my Grandma and Grandpa just before leaving for my prom, 2001.
So this is the last entry for The Point of Beginning. I've been doing POB since July 2006 when I started it on MySpace. I've enjoyed doing it but with me using Losers Are Made, Not Born more for my ramblings and rants, POB has become unnecessary. So thank you for dredging through these posts with me and hopefully I will still see you around my site.

Until next time, I remain...
~Brian