A is for Addition

I’m talking about an addition to the house.  We badly needed more room for seven kids and two parents.

When there were four of us kids, we finally moved from the Colonial trailer (much like an Airstream).  We took over three sharecropper’s shacks that our aunt and uncle were living in until they built a small house across the field.  They closed the shacks in to make one house.  However, this was only three rooms with an outhouse.  Even though this was bare bones living, most of us have our fondest childhood memories during the years we spent in this house.

I think we lived there a couple of years before our grandfather drove down from Houston (Mama’s father) to help with the addition project.  I’m sure he wondered how his only daughter ended up in such a place to start with.  He did what he could to give us more room by adding another section as big as we already had, separating them by a long hallway.  We also got an inside bathroom at this time.  I can remember him nailing up the sheetrock and taping it ready to paint, however the only thing ever painted in this section of the house was our parent’s bedroom.

 This is the sharecropper's shack we lived in

In fact, the original house was only two by fours and never actually closed in or painted, except for the door, which was sea green.

Bringing his small old suitcase, he stayed a few days and brought along a charcoal grill that we set up between the structures.  The adults stretched a tarp across to block the wind.  We roasted ears of corn and they were delicious after we peeled away the black shucks to expose the smoky tasting kernels.  This grill impressed all of us kids because we usually cooked inside in the tiny kitchen.

This was the only time I can remember our mother’s father spending the night with us.  We really didn’t have any room for company and I wonder now where he slept.