America the poor: A Wanderers Tale, Volume One

CHAPTER 35: Life with my Grandparents, and my Wonderful other Uncle Sonny

The next Sunday I was driven to the old family house on Rhode Island street. Sandy drove me alone, since Joe avoided drama whenever possible. The large house was situated on the westside of Buffalo, my side, and it was the place I spent many weekends in my past.

It felt like my true home, since my mother moved over and over, almost endlessly, but this house was always there. Like a rock, a little piece of eternity, in my family since the early 1900s, about as secure as homes get. My grandparents, of course I cared for them both, had decided my final place was with them, and I eagerly agreed. I transferred to a school called Buffalo Traditional, located on the east side of Buffalo, and I was bussed there, yet again.

My grandfather, Arthur, known as Arty to everyone, gave up his personal room to me, and consolidated his room with his wife's, to the front master bedroom, out of respect and consideration for me. I appreciated it, I needed a space of my own, of course. It was far smaller than my west seneca room, but I was very comfortable there.

There was less obvious wealth than my previous home, and they were far more down to earth folks. A much simpler house, it had 2 well lived stories, plus a wonderfully mysterious 3rd floor attic, as well as a dark dank basement, and yet I felt far more at home there. My room was very the back bedroom, small, with one closet, and one small single sized bed.

I would always miss Sandy, and to a lesser degree, my politically inclined Uncle Joe, yet I understood that was the nature of life for someone such as myself. No home was permanent, things would always change, nothing was certain, only the moment.

There is no such thing as the "future", there's only now, and now. Best to make oneself comfortable wherever you happen to be. The only real home is in oneself, my stony heart became my only true home, every other place was fleeting, and nothing in life lasts. By this time in life, I'd learned this lesson a bit too damned well.

I unpacked, and did my very best to make myself somewhat comfortable. I had a small dark closet, a tiny bed, a dresser, and a large mirror facing the bed, directly connected to the tiny but homely kitchen. We generally ate meals at the kitchen table, but holiday and special meals were held in the larger dining room. A much bigger dark oak table sat there, far older than I ever was, with a small chandelier above , and a large dark wooden lit china cabinet on one side.

God I loved that old house, and half my childhood was lived there, long before I ever moved in. When I resided there full time, I finally felt I was home, somehow. It was a very comfortable place, and I felt like I finally belonged. My mother's constant moving, almost endlessly and limited to the West side, never created a home for me; Just a litany of places that I slept. Never a real home, and never had I felt that way fully until I was deposited in the old family house. It represented family history, and stability like no other place ever did.

Sadly, I felt connected to the house itself certainly , but not with my grandparents. Not to say I didn't care for them, I did in my own way, but I felt more connected to that very place, the wood, the rooms, the smells.

It was an almost ancient place, like my soul is, yet I didn't know it then, I didn't have the ability nor words to define it like I do now. It was merely a powerfully strong feeling, of belonging, like I was connected to the very rooms, the paintings, the atmosphere within, and the foundations themselves. I was a part of them, and they were part of me, and still are to this day 40 years later.

If you exit the small kitchen, to the back hallway, go up another floor through a winding hallway that smells like cooked cabbage, , and you enter the odd attic, with an atmosphere all its very own, but more on that later. Instead go downstairs, and around a corner. The hallway was always a light blue, with old stairs that always creaked. Cooked pork was also in the air, pretty much forever. . Decades of cooking I suppose had made their mark, for all time.