Old Gray House on John Street

I was in the vicinity of RIT when I remembered that I needed to get a card for a friend. RIT has a spanking new Barnes & Noble bookstore that I have only been in once. I am sure they will have nice cards. Sometimes I have a hard time finding an appropriate card that expresses just the right sentiment. I prefer the ones with a beautiful picture on the outside and blank on the inside so I can write my own heart there.

I had a great time perusing the cards, pricey though they were. I tell myself sternly that I need to get the printer at home working so I can print the pictures Drew took at the Lilac Festival last year. Those would make great cards without denting my bank account.

It was just beginning to snow lightly when I came out of B&N. I chucked the bag with my select card on the front seat of the car, buckled the seat belt, and backed out of the narrow space. From the position I was facing, I had a clear view of John Street, the side street off Union/Jefferson Avenue that led into the new complex that the store shared with several restaurants and the elegant new student housing units.

Everything on the corner was pleasing to the eye, modern with straight even lines, matching architecture, peaked roofs and archways. Even the colors of the buildings matched with their faux brick and goldenrod/green flashings. Signs were new, huge glass windows gleamed in the early afternoon sun. It was an appealing addition to the sprawling campus, making the creep of academia seem less invasive.

By comparison, the buildings on the other side of John Street are old and worn down. Roof lines dip and buckle, sheds slant, paint is peeling and siding weathered. One lone brick building is advertising availability to lease. Next to that, what used to be a family home, now vacant and boarded up. It reminded me of my Grandmother's clapboard house, gray with decades of weathering because my Grandfather was adamant that if they painted the house, their taxes would go up and he would not be able to afford to live there.

As I sat for a moment, staring at the house, I realized that someone had drilled holes all over the exterior. For what purpose I am at a loss to think. I began to giggle. It looked like a giant woodpecker had drilled nest holes all over the house structure. There was no particular pattern though many of the holes seemed to follow some sort of loose and flexible line.

Then it dawned on me that no one could ever live in the house now. How sad. The passing of an era. Someone had lived in that home, raised their children there, maybe even birthed a few in the cozy rooms beneath the sagging roof. Graduation parties, wedding showers, wakes, a full bouquet of life's precious moments had been lived within the confines of those walls, hopes and dreams wrapping about the daily chores of washing dishes and making beds. What a tale we would learn could those walls speak.

And now the structure was being cast aside to make room for the bigger and better, the newer and stronger. Yet that house had character with its open porches and two stories plus an attic. You don't see houses like that much anymore. Oh, I know that wood rots and plaster falls in and doors creak off their hinges and the time comes to cash it in for something better.

Its just hard to watch and wait for the transition to happen. Someday I will drive past and the house will have been torn down, the lot razed, a basement dug for a new foundation to be laid. In the meantime, I want to pat the old house and thank it for its good life, to let it know how much it has been treasured, that we are in no particular hurry to forget the era of quiet gentility it represents. Nice old house. Enjoy your final days. Make the most of your well deserved rest before you disappear. Remind us of the important things we tend to forget in our scurrying about. Some of us will listen.