The shadow of legends run long.
On a date during their engagement in 1955, my parents drove past an Italian Restaurant. Feeling a bit peckish, my mom suggested that they pull in for a bite.
Slowing the car down and leaning over towards her, my dad said, “Andree, it’s a pizza or a house.”
Decision clearly made, they drove on so that he could return her to the apartment shared with her sister and mother.
Nine years later brings us to this very day in 1964.
A Buick station wagon, five children (five!), a dachsund and a dream pulled into the newly graveled drive that wrapped through the former cornfield and around to the spiffy, brand new soft grey saltbox house.
Fifty years later, with a few additions, a pool, a tennis court and then it’s removal, a barn, a split-rail fence (each post hole dug by hand by the indentured servants aka the children!), several horses, a donkey, a pony, a minimum of forty dogs, a dozen cats, several pet rodents, a couple of John Deere tractors, dozens of tree plantings and chainsaw removals, weddings, sixteen grandchildren, parties, sleepovers, murder games, charades, christmas trees and thanksgivings, reveling and hi jinx, we come to this very day and indeed, wonderfully and happily, my parents are still here. Literally. I think they’re reading the papers over coffee.
Open arms, this land of five acres and fifty years has welcomed all, nurtured all, and warmed all. Here’s to my mom and dad, their vision and fortitude, imagination and heart.
m wood pen 