Soccer Dad

Childhood's end

In some ways I feel like I never grew up. Yes, I have a job. I'm married with children. And yet I haven't felt totally grown up.

This summer things have changed a bit. Our oldest daughter graduated high school and is planning to go to Israel to study in seminary this fall. I'm teaching another child to drive. I just got bifocals. It's getting harder to deny that I'm a grown up.

But the surest sign that I'm grown up is that my parents just moved out of the house they lived in for 40 years.

I remember the day we moved in. It was 40 years ago. Almost exactly. A year earlier we had moved from Springfield, Massachusetts to Baltimore. We had lived in an apartment for a year.

Once upon a time the front yard was dominated by a crab apple tree. But the apples existed mostly for the bees and other insects so some time ago it was cut down. (Once though, I think, my mother found enough good ones to bake into a pie.)

While the rest of the family was moving, a friend's father took me to my first Orioles game. It was July 8, 1969. Mrs. Babe Ruth was honored at the game and all fans got a commemorative Babe Ruth coin. I have no idea what became of the coin. I remember that in the first game of the double header the Orioles scored 10 runs in a single inning. I note with some amusement that both Frtiz Peterson and Mike Kekich pitched in the game for the Yankees.

This would be my room for the next sixteen years, except when I was in school. The night that I moved in, my parents gave me what I had wanted for years: my own room. But I got lonely, and it wasn't long before my brother moved back in with me. My bed is the one by the window. My father built the bookcase/headboards for our beds in Springfield.

One of the unique features of the house was the Sukkah that my father built. Originally built in Springfield in 1964, it was my parents' until last month. During our first Sukkos in Baltimore a hurricane blew in. Ours was one of the only few to remain standing. The canvas Sukkahs didn't stand a chance. I knew after that that I would always have to have a wook Sukkah.

The Sukkah went up on the patio in the back.

I don't know how many innings of wooden bat/ tennis ball baseball we played in the back yard, by ourselves or with friends...

or how many quarters of Nerf football we played downstairs in the family room, but they were a lot!

When these were our venues, they looked a little different. The backyard had two large willow trees, one of which doubled as third base. When we played in the family room, it had a tile floor with alternating dark and light brown tiles.

The sub-basement flooded during Hurricane Agnes, and maybe a few other times.

On the more pleasant side of nature, robins built a nest on the porch 30 summers ago. We watched all summer until the eggs hatched. The baby birds would snap at us as we walked past them. Finally, one day they hopped along the ledge and flew away. (Actually, one of them didn't quite fly away. He hit a drain pipe and landed in the bushes. It took a little longer to fly away, but he got away.

The truth is that we didn't leave the house forever.

When we got married, my brothers and I celebrated our Sheva Brachos at the house. Two of my sons had their bris there.

The dining room hosted monthly "Gerstman Sundays" that my mother prepared to celebrate all of our milestones.

And next to the dining room, until a few months ago, stood the piano that was covered with pictures of our growing families. It served as a museum of the recent history of the family.

Five years ago as we had work done on our house, we moved back to 4508 Dresden Road for the summer.

Obviously I can't do justice to all the memories and everything that happened over the years. But that house is a big part of who I am. As happy as I am that my parents are nearby, I miss it already.

Posted by SoccerDad at July 21, 2009 12:24 AM