Wednesday, June 26, 2019

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.

16 comments:

  1. Oh dear Emma you saw such awful and funny people

    imagining those drunken men makes me laugh

    your brothers in active war zone must have had upset your parents then

    YES CONTINUE PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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    1. There is so much more to tell that I will continue. It was a funny neighborhood and also very nice. My children laughed to see the man next door crawling home with wet pants.

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  3. rhymeswithplagueJune 27, 2019 at 5:44 AM

    I read this week that Detroit has about one-third the population it used to have, dropping from 1.8 million about 50 years ago to around 675,000 today. Many neighborhoods have been completely abandoned, and houses are deca68hg. Like New Orleans after Katrina. What happened?

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    1. Corrupt politics is what happened. Detroit is trying hard to turn around. I hope they make it.

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  4. Your story is pleasantly mid western. I'm enjoying it all.

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    1. I am glad it gives you pleasure. I hope you read on.

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  5. Yes, Emma, please do continue. I am always so amazed at how well you recall all the events and places in your fmaily's lives. Also to answer a question you had about what was in the middle of the plate on my recent post. it was the BBQ we had in Charleston, SC.

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  6. Yes, I want to hear more. What things you have seen!

    Mmmm. Strawberries.

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  7. Dear Emma, I hope you are making a paper copy of your posts so your future family can use it as a genealogy guide, just in case the internet version is ever lost. Just an idea.

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  8. awesome article.
    thanks for sharing :)

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