“If Cinder Blocks Could Talk”

The house at 824 Pleasant Street still stands. It was my home from 1955 to 1970.

My folks cared for this two-story for another 25 years after I left for college.The memories speak of countless tales hidden within those cinder blocks stacked like legos.

They were uneven showing signs of jagged cracks in the foundation from years of settling. You can’t ignore the warmth the blocks absorbed from the summer sun. It felt like a Swedish sauna. Even the winter sun added heat to the inside as the blocks

transferred that energy. Their 8”x16” concrete bodies displayed enormous strength when staggered and stacked to form their structure.

Their covering remained bare- no paint, no siding, only the cinder crystals sparkling in the radiant sun with remnants of dust particles settling at its base. It’s solid walls proved to be an experimental testing lab for mounting structures, such as -

basketball hoops with a built-in backboard. The north end wall served as a backstop for bouncing rubber balls off its indestructible structure.

Because of it’s unique structure, large with many rooms, it attracted neighbor kids to spend much of their playtime at our house. It wasn’t without its drawbacks. Sometimes we would get careless and break a window from a basketball, baseball, or even worse-a projectile from a beebe gun. The one that got my dad upset the most, was an occasional arrow stuck in the roof.

The floor of the basement walls consisted of clay and sand reaking with a musty smell. It later became solid concrete providing the foundation of a suitable structure for benches, machinery, new furnace, and storage.

It’s protective head covering consisted of solid oak rough sawn rafters and ceiling joists with nothing to adorn their landscape. It was later covered with cardboard and paint an easy, affordable ceiling material, but not fire resistant. That openness enticed curious minds to climb up into each triangular structure and walk across each two foot span. The terrain was rough and often left its mark of multiple oak slivers when relatives and friends attempted to hike across in their tender bare feet. It became the perfect scenario for playing hide-and-seek.

After completing the upper level of rafter mania, your tour took you through seven rooms; four bedrooms, one bathroom, one storage, and one hobby room. The hobby room was filled with my dad’s wooden crafts. Everything from a replica of a Missippi river boat, to the majestic Michigan Mackinaw Bridge. The upstairs hallway resembled a bowling alley - marbles permitted only, as we used a metal vacuum tube to roll our marbles through hoping to take out plastic toy army men.

The main floor downstairs consisted of the living room which housed the only heat, a free-standing fuel oil furnace, (replaced later with a natural gas furnace in the basement.) There were two bedrooms off the living room with no doors-only curtains on a rod, kitchen off the living room, small closet area off of the kitchen, and a small bathroom with a toilet, sink and tub. One of the closets had a laundry shoot leading to the basement. When I was a little boy, I often sweezed through it into the basement when playing hide-and-seek. Seeing it now, I wondered how I squeezed through a 12”x12” square.

This downstairs housed adult language. It was the place for relatives and guests of my folks to visit, relax, and talk about serious matters, (off limits to siblings who still took an apple to their teacher.) That’s o.k. It provided a language adults didn’t hear or understand. It always told a story. Listen. To adults it was only a structure. To us growing up - an adventure, a challenge, a playground, a place you wanted to come back to.

Fifty years later I did. While visiting the old neighborhood, I noticed the old homestead was up for sale. I had driven by the place many times when I visited relatives and friends in the area, but never had the opportunity to view it up close. The realtor scheduled an open house that weekend. I had to go.

My nephew who lived in the Grand Ledge area went with me. The old cinder block had a new covering. White siding. No more glistening crystals, now hidden,once seen embedded in the blocks. The open concrete porch was now enclosed and no longer open to passing neighbors. It got a new roof, windows, and trim. The inside was unrecognizable. Every room remodeled with the look of modern living. No more oil stove as the center piece of the living room.

The upstairs took a new look. Every ceiling now dry walled which covered the old majestic oak rafters. I still visualized their roughness and character, and sometimes how they would retaliate with slivers from walking on their thick skin.

The attached garage was turned into an extra room. No more oil spots, or the sound of my dad grumbling as he backed his four-thousand pound Pontiac Chief into a spot made for a compact car.

The basement was the place where both my dad and me spent much of our time. It was a workshop designed for imagination. This was the place where my dad’s creativeness was born. The glass mason jars that used to hang from the ceiling on a homemade rotisserie were no longer there. From the basement they ended up on the second floor of my dad’s showroom of talents.

The door to the basement was original. Scales of old paint curling up on the edges revealed the nakedness of a pine door barely supported by rusty hinges.

When I opened that door which over time resembled more of a crypt. Looking around, I turned to my nephew and thought, could it be? I said, “I’m home.” Nothing had changed. It looked like it did fifty years ago. Dad’s benches, light fixtures, fruit shelves, even his grinder still attached to a work bench.

I could hear those cinder blocks talk again, only this time, “You are home.”