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The house we bought close
to White Rock Lake on Cayuga Street provided many a happy hour for our
family. Friends constantly came in and out so that few lonely days worried
us. Even though the neighborhood was made up of separate small houses and
snuggled up close together only one in the neighborhood at first offered
to get acquainted. Rhonda was in school all day at Carroll, which was
again close to downtown. The bus picked her up each morning, early.
Whoever had owned our home had added to it with an extra bedroom and a
quite large den so that it was a pleasure to clean. After I had met some
of the other folks I realized their homes were tiny with only two
bedrooms. The houses were what was called Gold Star Homes and were
originally built for war veterans. The den of our place had a small built
in brick bar-b-q pit. Hardwood floors were beautiful and had been well
kept.
“Rhonda, you can only sit
in front of that closet for so long picking an outfit to wear! If you
don’t find something soon, I’ll have to come select one for you.” I was
trying to hurry her along so she wouldn’t miss the bus.
“This dress, and this
ribbon and I don’t want to wear that big white ribbon. Sam said it looked
like it had grown to my head.” Rhonda stated her case for what she would
and would not wear.
“Oh Sam! What does he
know?” I laughed.
“Don’t care, not wearing
that white ribbon.” Rhonda was sure of what she wanted and didn’t want.
As soon as Rhonda was off
and gone on the bus I bathed and dressed my second child, Mark and this
time the two of us were off and on our way to the grocery store. It was a
short walk and I especially enjoyed the time out of the house. So did he.
On the way back home we
stopped by to visit the neighbor I liked best who had stepped out on her
porch once to introduce herself while I was walking by with Mark.
“Estelle? Are you busy?’ I
knew she wasn’t. The aging woman had already retired from her job as
manager over a dress factory and her time now was pretty much her own. I
suppose she was a bit lonely, too, after having been separated from a
large staff of people she had supervised at the factory. A grown son was
living in Dallas but he worked all the time. Her husband loved his garden
and spent a good amount of time doing that.
“Come in. Come in. I’ve
just finished a painting I wanted you to see.”
Estelle was an artist with
quite a lot of talent. We could spend an hour discussing the latest piece
she had done while Mark followed Jake around the back yard. Estelle loved
Corot and had used his style to do a lake scene. The light coming off the
water in her painting which depicted dusk was lovely as Corot’s and we
talked about how she had accomplished that.
Thanks to Annette for this picture of the
Dallas skyline
“The sky holes in the trees
are nice.” I told her.
“Yes, I worked on those
quite a while to get them to look like the real thing. The light is
brightest right in the middle of the hole and dims as it gets closer to
the leaves. Her perfectionist ways were no different in her hobby than
they were in all aspects of her life but I very much admired her for that.
“Well, best get home for
now. I’m having company tonight and need to start with preparations.”
“Again? Seems like you just
had someone over.” Estelle was a bit of a bossy mother at times but I
enjoyed that since my own mother was not close to me at the moment.
“Oh yeah. Well, you know.
Anything to keep the troops from becoming restless.” I laughed as I said
it.
“Seems to me you are
getting acquainted with quite a few people,” but she was smiling, too, as
she said that. So went the days in our idyllic life and there wasn’t a
hint that anything would happen to make any changes in the future.
“Rhonda loves her little
dresses and I’m going to cut one of those out..” I was already looking out
toward the back yard where Mark was digging in the dirt along side Jake.
“I’ll see you later,” I
told Estelle and started off to go by the couple of houses to our place.
“By the way, do you have
any grapes? I wanted to paint grapes today but Jake ate mine.” We both
laughed at that turn of events. Estelle was from the north and although
she had managed to work in the soft southern world of Dallas by making
changes in her personality every once in a while her quick observations
became apparent as she voiced a complaint in a very plain way. This was
just something else I enjoyed about the woman. |
