Wellington Avenue

My grandparents moved into a condo on Tuesday. Which in and of itself doesn’t seem that remarkable, but it also means tha the whole family can no longer gather at Grandma & Poppop’s house. At least, not all at the same time. Actually, because most of the grandchildren have kids of their own now, and the aunts and uncles are still all around (for the most part), there really wasn’t room for all of us in their old house, either. But we tried to fit, on occasion. Due to the fact that I am employed full-time and also a single mom – as well as the fact that my home is smack-dab in the middle of their old house in Chicago and their new condo in Naperville, I was unable to help out with most of the moving process (although I talked to Grandma yesterday, and she told me I can come hang pictures next Saturday). Then on Tuesday, it occurred to me that I missed my last chance to say goodbye to their old house. I was a little bummed for about two seconds before I realized why I wasn’t more upset – because to me, Grandma & Poppop’s REAL home was the one on Wellington Avenue.

You see, the house they were moving from on the northwest side USED to be their “new” house. They moved there when I was in my teens (I think), from the infamous house on Wellington. And that is the house I will always think of when I think of their house. That house was the coolest house I knew. It was big, and old, and had two backyards. Every weekend my parents would take my brother and me over to Grandma and Poppop’s house, where we would meet dad’s sisters and their husbands and all the cousins. Occasionally we would go early enough to attend church (yes, I HAVE been in a church!!) at big old St. Francis and hear Poppops sing in the choir. (Alas, the only family member to this day who can carry a tune.) If it was summertime, all the cousins would wreak havoc in the yard (but not the triangle yard, that yard wasn’t for playing!) and argue over who got to sit on the swing. Sometimes Poppops would set up the volleyball net, and we would play volleyball or badminton. Other times, my dad and my Uncle Joe would each grab a mitt and all the kids would play running bases. Mom and Grandma and my three aunts would sit at the patio table, smoking and talking and always ready to yell at us kids if we got out of control. (Only Grandma would NEVER yell.) After a while, we would all go into the house to eat sandwiches on fresh bakery bread, then try to find the jar of Planter’s Peanuts Poppops always had stashed. For dessert there was always a coffee cake, also fresh from the bakery.

After lunch, we would usually go back outside to play some more. Sometimes, my cousin Karyn and I would hang out in the room that connected the two backyards (which was dusty and filthy, but lots of fun!) and start out by trying to clean it, then wind up making mudpies. And since we were girls, we loved going into “Grandma’s” backyard to look at all her flowers and sometimes eat fresh raspberries right off the bush in the corner. When we felt daring, we would sneak into the house and enter the small “apartment” downstairs – in which our Uncle Patty lived. I don’t recall ever actually seeing Uncle Patty, but the thrill of creeping around like cat burglars was something Karyn and I really enjoyed. (I’m sure if we ever had gotten caught, we would’ve been in MAJOR trouble!) We never disrupted his things, or stayed very long – but one day we DID find out one probable reason he was called “Uncle Patty.” While doing an innocent peek under his bed, we found a pair of size 14 ruby slippers like in the Wizard of Oz and a floral parasol. Although at the time we didn’t really understand the concept of cross-dressing, our discovery was enough to make us decide to stay out of Uncle Patty’s apartment and let him have his privacy back.

Grandma and Poppops’ house also had an upstairs, with a small extra bedroom where you got to sleep if you spent the night. And it was right next to the train tracks (not the “el” tracks) so you had to learn to block out the train noise. (Of course, if we were in the backyard and a train went by, we all had to wave, because my Uncle Don was an engineer, and apparently he drove every train.) There was also a larger bedroom where Grandma Lorzel used to sleep. She died, though, so the room just stayed empty. And my cousin Karyn and I used to imagine we would hear her ghost. The coolest part of the upstairs was the little cubbyhole where Grandma and Poppops kept the toys. They had really cool stuff, like the Charlie Weaver doll that made a martini, drank it, and then turned red while smoke came out of his ears. And they had a horse race game, where you had to shoot marbles skee-ball style to move your horse. Only problem with that game was that only four people could play, and my cousins and I weren’t that good at sharing. There was a big rocking chair, too, that Karyn used to love rocking in, and tricked me out of my turn several times back in the day.

The stairs going from upstairs to downstairs were old (like the rest of the house) and creaked very loudly in certain spots, so if you planned on spying on anyone down below, you had to learn to avoid the creaky spots. A difficult task, that wasn’t easily mastered. And to be honest, we usually got tired of spying and wound up just joining the rest of the kids to watch “Wild Kingdom” or “The Wonderful World of Disney” instead.

One part of the Wellington house that didn’t change when the first move took place was my favorite part of all: Grandma’s music boxes. She had more music boxes than anyone in the world. I loved looking at all of them, and when I was old enough to touch them, loved taking them down and playing each one, one after the other. Poppops, on the other hand, enjoyed nothing more than seeing if he could wind up every single music box and have them all playing at the same time. The kids loved this, Grandma and the other adults HATED it. Grandma gave each of us grandchildren one of the music boxes a few Christmases ago, and mine will always be my favorite gift from Grandma.

Yes, the house on Wellington was the house of my youth. And I really think the best part of that house was the love that was in it. There were no family disputes, no one ever had any “convenient excuses” not to be there as usual on Sunday afternoon, no one judged anyone else or worried about anyone else’s choices in life (unless they wanted to help). Everyone got along, always. There was always laughter and smiles that were genuine, not forced. Somehow it seems that over the years, for whatever reason, as the days of Wellington Avenue got further and further away, the family that used to stick together like glue started to come undone. Which is really sad, because it’s one hell of a family. Maybe if we all got a chance to spend one more Sunday together on Wellington Avenue…