05 September 2009

Upstairs

In a comment to a previous post, Peter said:

...the rock pond and swimming pool ... were built at the time the house was built, not by Higgenbotham but by a guy named Tyler, who according to Higgenbotham had the house constructed, with all the fancy pond, pool, landscape vegetation, etc., as a wedding gift for his daughter. All in 1911.

Supposing Mr Tyler's daughter to have been 21 in 1911, and Mr Tyler to have been, say, 25 when she was born, he might have grown up in the years following the American Civil War. Upstairs there were six bedrooms, but in fact there were three large bedrooms, each with a smaller attached room. My father told me that the smaller ones were dressing rooms.

Whether or no, they were for us six bedrooms.

We were six in our family (including, remember, Jeremiah, who was an effective part of our family. All right, but did my parents not share a bedroom? They did. So that means we only needed five bedrooms - is that not correct?

It is. How it came about that I had more than the lion's share of rooms I do not know. A greedy self-interest on my part certainly had something to do with it, and only now, in advanced years, does it occur to me to wonder whether either my brother or sister may have resented the fact that I had two rooms of my own, and the only two rooms that gave me pretty complete privacy. I had two rooms, and effectively pretty much first rights to a third.

Up the stairs and to the left was my parents' room. It was large enough that my father's desk was in the corner. Next to it, with a door into their room and another door to the hallway was the large bathroom - the only one with a bathtub.

From their room - sharing a door with it into the hallway - was the bedroom that belonged to Robin, my sister.

Turn right at the top of the stairs, then left, and you are in Peter's room - the larger of the two whose smaller room was Jeremiah's.

Across from Peter's room was ... my suite. The smaller bedroom, at the back of the house, was where my bed was. Between my room and Jeremiah's was the small bathroom (shower and toilet but not tub).

But the bigger bedroom that led into my own was effectively my office. What did I have in there? I don't recall in detail - and I think at one point there must have been a bed, for that bed, and the so-called 'french doors' (double doors with panes of glass) between the two, were responsible for the only moderately serious injury of my life - but more of that another time.

Anyway, that was my two rooms - and off that larger room was a screened-in upstairs open-air porch (at least we called it that) - that also had a bed in it - two, perhaps - in which I liked to sleep in summer. I think Peter also slept there, sometimes, so there must have been two beds. No doubt he can refresh my memory.

Regarding that injury ... well, next time!

1 comment:

Unitman said...

First, regarding you having the "Suite", didn't bother me since I was either flying around on my '57 Lambretta, and later, a '56 Sport Fury with 392 Hemi! Besides, I knew where the keys were to the "picker's cabin" down at the bottom of the driveway, so didn't need the presidential complex.

Regarding some of the furnishings in your Suite, I remember the Bong or Dong or Gong -- the middle east water-cooled smoking pot, and the occasional supplementing of the drug with a special mix of "green slime" for which you held the manufacturing patent! And don't forget the dart board on the far wall!!!!