My Space

My Space

Isn't it funny how one photo can open the floodgates and let the memories burst from my brain and onto a page.  

I remember my little sister Lisa coming into the world late in 1960, and Mom and Dad 'raising the roof' literally when space became an issue for their family of six.  The thought of having four children, and having three of them be girls, must have accelerated the 'We either have to move or make the house bigger' thoughts that seemed to dominate conversations at the time.  The construction was done in 1962 when I was five. I remember being fascinated when I got to hang out with the contractor, whose name was Rudy, and watch from a distance as he ripped the attic and roof off the house and many weeks later had created a bedroom spanning the width of the house, as well as a second bathroom, and a new attic and roof.

Initially, the room was occupied by my two older sisters: Janet, who was a teenager at the time, and Stephanie, who was a few years younger.  As time marched on, various combinations of sisters occupied the penthouse, and by 1975, after Janet and Stephanie were both married and living on their own, the palace was mine!  I instantly made it my own.

This is half of the room.  The half you can't see had a bed, dresser, closets...normal bedroom stuff.  This half, though, was my lifeline for the last eight years give or take a year that I lived in my parents' house.  It was my space.

My Space

No CD's!  No IPod!  Just a record player sitting on that old metal stand, and those are records filling the slots underneath.  The corner desk set was made by my Dad just for me, with a set of drawers to the right of it.  No touch screen selection of tunes on top of that furniture! Just a record album flip file...something I haven't seen in thirty years.  The album cover on the front of the flip file was Carole King's Writer.  No portable media with headphones! No Docking Station!  Just old fashioned stereo separation with speakers like the one atop the desk playing my tunes. No wall in my lair would be complete without a poster of The Beatles...and that other group to their right.  Can you guess who is on the poster to the right of the Beatles?  Neither could I.  I searched my house for a magnifying glass to view the photo more closely, found one, studied the poster, and still couldn't guess...or see the poster any better.  Google, the knower of all things, came to my rescue as I searched for images of posters of any group whose albums I might have been listening to at the time, and after just minutes of searching, I was reminded that this poster was included in the album Golden Bisquits by Three Dog Night, a personal favorite of the era! Mystery solved!  

No computer!  No monitor!  No easy-touch keyboard!  Just an old fashioned manual typewriter on the Dad-made typewriter table to the left of the corner desk.

No Flatscreen!  No Widescreen!  No High Definition!  No Color! No Surround Sound!  The television in the photo was a thirteen inch set with a black and white picture, and good old monaural sound.  No Cable!  No Remote Control! It boasted seven channels when the rabbit ear antennae were positioned correctly.

No digital photography!  No computer to store my pictures on!  Just a bulletin board on my desk with my favorite snapshots, that were taken with my Kodak Instamatic camera, tacked on!  I remember that metal Charlie Brown trash can from my early childhood, and the target for the Velcro balls hanging above the bulletin board.  I remember a good friend who was a talented craftsman building me a partition between the bedroom side and the leisure side.

Kodak Instamatic Camera

No recessed track lighting!  That's a hand me down floor-to-ceiling pole lamp donated to my space by my Mom, along with the triangular coffee table on the right, and a black leather sofa (not pictured).  The sign above the window reads "It's 11 P.M., Does your Mother know you're here?"   Long after the room was no longer my space, and my own kids visited their Grandmom and Grandpop in that house, and played in my former space, that sign remained in the room for them to enjoy.

The house belongs to another family now.  My space will never be the same, but I hope good memories are still being created there.  I loved my space; learned in my space; laughed and cried in my space; grew and grieved in my space; and when it was time, left my space.

For nothing would I trade the memories of my space.....