Three Kids on the Loose
As teenagers we rebuilt our mother’s house.
Board by board we cleaned it out.
Then with infinite patience
We built it back again.
Substandard it was and a veritable blight
But for Mom an inveterate reader there was insufficient light.
So a crowbar to the walls she takes with a gigantic thud
To disprove the assertion the walls lacked even a single stud.
So to give her sliding glass doors abundant,
And certain niceties redundant,
The bathroom gone the summer of ‘58
Forced us to piss down the toilet bend grate
And for matters more delicate I say
The service station a mile away
Served our needs efficiently
Since the attendant helped obligingly.
Board by board we extracted and replaced
With virgin wood proceeding apace.
A second bath, a new kitchen.
In retrospect it was rather bitchin.
And a new room full twenty by twenty
With beam ceilings a plenty
Faced with an ash cabinet eight feet tall
Across the entire 20-foot side wall.
With space for books on the very top
And cupboards and shelves around
And a compartment for Chuck’s Stereo meticulously crafted.
Driving two AR-2 speakers producing mellifluous sound
With front and back sliding glass doors.
The rooms heat escape with a roar
Necessitated central heating
In the crawl space under the floor.
Knob and tube electrical wiring stripped and removed
Replaced with Romex three wire with ground –fully code approved.
Dry walled and paneled with elegant wood
The feeling was warm and wonderfully good.
The kitchen remodeled with ash paneling new
A Tradewinds hood
Over a new stove stood.
Facing the garden gave a pleasant view.
Did I mention re-roofed
(the tar heated in a wheelbarrow
Over an open flame.
Re-stuccoed
And surrounded by cement walks
And functional decks– pretty stunning
Just right for indolent sunning.
We memorialized the project with a plaque on the wall
Underneath the chrome plated broken-tined crowbar that started the fun.
Inscribed “To Mrs. Winchester from her three loving sons,
Christmas 1961”
A worthy accomplishment done by us all.
She was truly grateful “saying you boys were so good to me”
To which we did entreat:
“Our other choice would have been to live on the street.”
But we all learned by solve problems competently
How many kids built their their own home?
Knowing their mother was eternally grateful
But later we wondered whether there was method to her madness
For that three year project kept us off the street.
Friends visited us and indolently watched us toil and
I never remember them lending a hand!
And on hot days we did retreat
To surf at Pescadero Beach.
For us the story had a somewhat painful ending
For twenty years later her resolve unbending
She died in the room we built, as was her wish – right there
Avoiding a tortured death under intensive care.
After she died – out of financial necessity
Her homestead was sold
And the structure by a Caterpillar tractor turned into trash
All that work rubbed out quick as a flash.
And for me the moral was eminently plain
To create and build is agonizingly slow
Destruction comes down like the rain
Then there’s nothing left to show.
Howard P. Charman, MD 3-17-2022