The New House

My parents moved to a new house with more room. Actually it was an older home that was converted into a three family home. My parents had the whole second floor.

On the first floor lived a Mexican family with several children. I first saw them when they were playing on the porch. They had a snack of buttered tortillas. I felt so sorry for them having such a poor snack. Guess what was one of my children's favorite snacks when they were older... right you are. Buttered tortillas.

A smaller apartment on the first floor was empty. My husband and I rented it.

The neighborhood was so nice and extremely clean. In Detroit there are ethnic pockets scattered throughout the city. This was a Polish neighborhood.  Newcomers are looked upon with suspicion. We had lived there for several years before being accepted.

The house on one side was home to a family from 'down South'. They had 4 little girls. They were such nice people and became good friends.

On the other side lived an older woman and her brother. The older woman also had a boyfriend who lived with her. Her boyfriend was THE MAN FROM DOWNSTAIRS AT THE APARTMENT BUILDING!

The only times we heard him was when they were arguing. That usually happened when they were drinking. Most of the time he was too drunk to do anything much except get into the house.

A lot of people in the neighborhood drank to excess. Several times the man next door was so drunk he could not walk so he would crawl home. More often than not he had also wet his pants.

A man across the street would coax his imaginary dog to follow him home. When he reached the walk leading to his house he began to remove his clothes. After he went inside his wife would come out and quietly gather his clothes and take them inside.

The nice family with 4 little girls moved and my husband and I rented their house. My parents bought the house they were living in.  They converted the house into a one family home.

During all this two of my brothers were drafted into the Army. One went to the DMZ in Korea. The other went to Viet Nam.  Both were in active war zones.

Mom and Daddy had their back yard. There were flowers, a strawberry bed, fresh vegetables, grape vines, and lots of room for an occasional BBQ.

Shall we continue this later? I think so.