This is not our house, but a generic one from the neighborhood. Soon, I'll add ours.
When my father returned from Alaska, and he had finished his Army duty, my parents bought a brand new red brick ranch in a low-income subdivision full of brick ranches. The houses in my neighborhood were all brick ranches and many of our family members lived in them. I remember when I was about 8 or 9 years old going for a walk by myself. I walked past one brick ranch after another. In the early days the only way to tell one from another was the brick color, pink, grey, beige, white, red. After a few years, there were more differences as they began to take on the personalities of the owners.
My friend Heidi Fitzpatrick’s mom planted beautiful flowers along the walkway in front of her red brick ranch. Our house was identical to hers, but without the flowers and the watered, fertilized, edged grass and the handmade white ruffled cotton curtains in the windows.
My Aunt Sherrie and Uncle John lived two doors down. They planted tall arborvitae shrubs out front of their white brick ranch, using freshly dead fish for fertilizing the holes. Then they built a garage to park their sky blue Dodge charger in. Garages did not come standard in this subdivision. It was some kind of government subsidized low-income project. That’s why everyone we knew bought houses there, too.
Grandma Spann lived two blocks over on McBride Street with my dad’s younger siblings: Aunt Suzie, Aunt Charlene, and Uncle Jerry, who was just two years older than me. Their house was a beige brick ranch, plain and unadorned on the outside except for one rosebush. Inside it was very clean. “Spic & Spann” I always thought. I decided my grandma must be named after the cleaning powder, or vice versa.
Aunt Doris & Uncle Sid’s house was a white brick ranch with a fascinating accessory. A beige metal lift that was attached to the six inch tall concrete “porch”, so Uncle Sid could wheel himself into the house.(He was paralyzed from jumping off of a garage roof into a swimming pool.) For no memorable reason, I walked over to their house all by myself one day. Uncle Sid was the only one home. Aunt Doris and the boys, Tommy & Johnny, were all out somewhere.
Uncle Sid and I sat at the kitchen table and he explained to me that though we say we live in Belleville, we really live in VanBuren Township and that our zip code was still 48111 for the Belleville post office. He might have helped me to learn to spell Belleville that day, too. There is no reason for remembering that ordinary day, except that he was so kind. I just loved being there talking to him. I do wonder why my parents would have allowed me to walk over there alone, it was only a couple of blocks, but I was pretty young.
A short time later, Aunt Doris became pregnant with my cousin Timmy. The father was not Uncle Sid, but rather Grandma Spann’s next door neighbor’s husband, Lloyd. They lived in a pink brick ranch. He soon became Uncle Lloyd and made everyone uncomfortable. They moved out of the subdivision up north to Webberville.
Uncle Sid moved down south somewhere, and he died when I was a teenager. I’m pretty sure I never saw him again after that day we sat at his table and learned about zip codes.
My first boyfriend, Sean, lived in a gray brick ranch, across the street from Aunt Doris & Uncle Sid. We met in kindergarten. One day on the playground at recess he drew his name in the sand, S-E-A-N. I took the stick and showed him the *correct* spelling of his name S-H-A-W-N. I helped him sound it out too. See, your name would be “seen” if you spell it that way. You need the S-H to make the “shhh” sound. This is the beginning of my bossy ways. He came to my sixth birthday party anyway and sat right in my very same chair with me.
