Home Sweet Home

Everyday I drive by the house I grew up in. My family moved to Maine from D.C. when I was 2. My parents sold the homestead when I was 21. The house and land are my childhood. They encompass almost the entire first half of my life. I have the most wonderful memories of childhood - and feel very fortunate for the life my parents gave me. My only regret is that my husband never got to see it, to experience my life foundation - that makes me sad. At times when life is feeling hard for me I think back to this special place, I miss it very much.

I grew up on a farm in perhaps the cutest little village on a river there is. Up a small paved road lined with giant trees and old well taken care of Victorian houses, sat our red farm house. With tall maples and pines in the front and an old cemetary on a giant hill across the street. A gravel driveway, green grass yard, stonewalls, a giant garden with the fastest growing asparagus around. We had horses, goats, bunnies, cats, a dog and many, many rodents over the years.

The house was 100yrs or so when my parents bought it in the 70's. They renovated the entire thing over the years, adding on a screened-in porch; the most widely used room of the house in the summer - and eventually moving the house onto a new foundation when I was in the 8th grade (a very cool thing to miss school for). The house came with a cat, Fred, who was given to a new family when the owners moved . . . but Fred wasn't up for moving so he wandered back and we kept him (until the elderly neighbors across the street ran him over in their garage many years later).

The house was set back from the narrow quiet road, with lush fields, a border of woods and a marvelous old barn complete with hay loft. The barn was filled with the sweet smell of hay, oats & corn for the animals and pine shavings for the stalls (ok, and probably horse and goat shit). Dad had a parking area for his motorcycle, near the stairs for the loft and the only other phone on our property besides the one and only orange rotary in the kitchen. The barn phone. This is the phone I would hold my private conversations on throughout highschool - it beat trying to sit at the top of the stairs with the kitchen phone cord stretched as far as it would go.

The cement entrance to the barn had my sister's and my initials - the thrill of putting one's finger in wet cement! This was the hubbub of the barn - where the rope swing was, the tie-offs for the horses and where you could look up and see all the hay stacked up like giant legos. Another fabulous place to play, hide, find the cats, lie and watch the swallows, read, spy or just relax. I remember many a time lying on the bales and listening to the staticy radio blaring the Red Sox from below as my Dad tinkered on his bike, or cleaned horse stalls. If the electric fence was on it came through the radio . . . tick . . . tick . . . tick . . .as the announcers yelled out plays. The cats would come out of hiding to snuggle, rub and purr - the first batch Fred, Dig'em and Tiger, later it was Lucy & Henry.

While they had the most giant presence, the horses never captured me like our other animals did. I was intimidated by them and just never truly comfortable around them. I took riding lessons on our neighbor's horses with my sister, who began showing with them and then became a horse freak. My parents jumped on board and well then I wanted to (but not really). I had the neighbor's horse take off out of the riding ring and gallop back to the barn with me on her freaking out - that was my first experience of complete horse chaos. My family ended up buying horses - Moon Glow Elegant Duke was my Dad's horse, or just Duke. Never liked him. He came up behind me in the pasture in 3rd grade right after we got him and pushed me to the ground with his nose and bit me square on the back. He did it again a few days later - and over the years bit other kids so a sign had to go on the gate and people were forever warned about him. Never trusted him. My Mom had Stardust first and then later sold her and bought Mystical Mutt, or Mutt. He was part draft horse and a giant love bug - but clumsy as all hell. While I was thrown off Duke (with my Dad who landed on me and knocked the wind out of me) I would fall off Mutt as he stumbled and tripped at least half the ride. My sister had her own horse for awhile, Amanda, who I never really got to know. I sold a ton of girl scout cookies one year as my Dad brought me around the village in horse and sleigh - what type of person doesn't by from the little brown haired girl in the horse and sleigh??? Like enormous dogs, Duke and Mutt would wait at the opening in the corner of the field around 5:30 every night until they heard my Dad's motorcycle come down the back dirt road and then they would gallop to the gate and prance around snorting as he drove into the barn . . . every night.

Just the physical landscape was enough to make one smile. The yard was used to play everything from tag, rolling inside inner tubes, kickball (don't let it go in Margie's garden! - our old next door neighbor). There were apple trees to climb, blackberry bushes to disappear in, an old tire swing. An entire graveyard considered an extended yard to us kids. We played everything from Barbies, Little House on the Prarie and flashlight tag in it. A unique cemetary, it was rather large on a giant hill that sloped to the river. It had a giant rock with stairs carved into it, gated family areas with benches and extremely large graves we could have a picnic on top of. A great place to sled in the winter, an intriguing place to spy on during a burial.

The surrounding countryside captured us daily. Not a moment went by that I didn't appreciate the beauty - even as a kid when I felt "so far away from town" I knew that our home was a special place. I thank my parents everyday (even on the winter days I'm stuck inside feeling crazy surrounded by 3ft of snow) for exploring Maine in their old Ford van (bright yellowish-orange and white with a giant Mickey Mouse on the side) and picking the Damariscotta area to move their business and raise their family. Everyday as I drive to work or home for the day, I drive through this special place and am flooded with memories: the bus stop I spent most weekday mornings at 7:15 with the neighborhood kids, the Harriet Gertrude Bird playground where we used to rollerskate on the ancient tar tennis courts, swatting huge green-
head flies while swimming in the river. I will always miss the close personal ties I had with this village and will continue to appreciate the memories and beauty on my daily drive.