Castles

Back in the day, they used to say a man’s home was his castle. I can remember my father saying it, no matter where we lived – and we moved around a lot – occupying many “castles” on Detroit’s East Side.

Mom used to say home was where the heart is, even though she dreaded every move. What I realized as an adult was that we never moved that far from where we had been living. I’m talking within a mile or two.

We once moved three times in five years to neighborhoods just minutes from each other. It’s something that still puzzles me to this day. I wish I had asked.

The house on Glenfield is where I grew up and made most of my childhood memories. It’s still there and doesn’t look much different at all.

Maybe it was to keep me in the same schools. Or to keep us close to family. Or because Dad was never one to let any moss grow under his feet.

The house on Wilfred Street was where my Italian grandparents, known as Nonna and Nonno, lived. We visited them regularly, as in just about every Sunday for family dinners, before we actually lived there. More on that later.

I loved Sunday dinners at Nonna’s. We’d eat like royalty – spaghetti and meat balls, homemade gnocchi or polenta and chicken. Then we’d watch “The Lawrence Welk Show” on TV.

You know how much I loved it since I actually use their old maple dining room set as my office furniture. I had it refinished when I moved back to Michigan in the mid-1990s, and it served me well in both of my homes. They don’t make dining room sets like this anymore, let me tell you.

After dinner, when the adults were all talking, I would sit under that dining room table and play, since I was the youngest child, listening to their stories and laughter. It was a much simpler time. Family gatherings meant everything. Nobody stayed home to watch football.

There’s also a black-and-white photo of me standing on the front porch steps of that very same house. It’s the summer of 1966, and I’m wearing a sailor suit-style sleeveless dress, my shiny shoulder-length hair pulled back with a smart barrette. My outfit is complete with white anklet socks and white shoes. Maybe Keds, but I doubt it.

I’m 6 years old. I look so happy.

No special occasion. Just Sunday dinner. That’s why I like watching “Blue Bloods” so much. Those dinner scenes take me back to 56 years ago.

The last time I drove by my grandparents’ old house was in 2019. Not sure why I was there. Doesn’t matter.

The old brick house was burned out and boarded up, crumbling alone surrounded by an overgrown lawn on a lot covered with weeds. Everything looked smaller, even those dilapidated front steps.

You could see into the back yard what was left of the garage that once held all of my grandfather’s garden tools, including a push mower, and an old car that had belonged to my Uncle Sam. I’d climb in and pretend I was driving.

That narrow driveway was split in half by a 2-foot-wide patch of grass as it led to the cracked cement sidewalk where I used to pull my childhood friend Cheryl Turner in Nonno’s wooden wagon. He’d take that wagon up the street every week to buy a case of beer at DiMaggio’s Market. And maybe some cheese and salami.

The big picture window was boarded up with what looked like fresh plywood, along with the front door, and all of the first-floor windows. The porch was barely standing over a disintegrating foundation.

The second floor, which served as an “upper flat” and rental income, was toast: each window void of any glass, blackened and burned to a crisp. Even the brown brick looked stripped off one side of the house.

In another time, this two-bedroom/one bath 1,443 square-foot brick house was a man’s castle. Built in 1926, this modest abode was big enough for my grandparents to each have a bedroom. The bathroom always smelled like Noxema face cream, Listerine (not the blue one) and Old Spice. There was always something good to eat in the kitchen. Like Lorna Doones.

Using the front door, you entered the main house foyer. Go left into Nonna’s. Go right and climb 20 or so stairs to reach the upper flat. It had a living room/dining room, two small bedrooms, one bathroom and a kitchen barely able to hold a table and four chairs. We lived there for a few years when my grandparents needed us. I walked to school, uphill both ways. (That line was for my oldest sister.)

I loved living in that flat. Mostly because it also had a tiny “balcony” off the kitchen, a not-so-secret back stairway with painted gray steps to the home’s side door and my grandparents’ kitchen. Those stairs also led to the dark, dingy basement, which I avoided at all costs until I was at least 10.

When I drove by their house in 2019, both homes on either side were torn down.

Now their house is gone, too. A vacant lot, wiped clean of memories.

Makes me sad.

Rebecca and I drove around the old neighborhood last week after having lunch at Sindbad’s restaurant to celebrate a family friend’s 88th birthday. That place is still good after all of these years. I spent many a lunch hour (or two) at Sindbad’s solving the problems of the world with my co-workers.

Not surprisingly, a couple of veteran waitresses recognized me.

“You’re a UAW girl, aren’t you?” said Denise with that familiar smile.

“I know you,” said her sister “Cookie,” famous for a salad of the same name that combined crushed bread sticks and hard-boiled eggs with Ranch and Italian dressing.

Out of this world!

Anyway, we have started watching that show on HGTV, “Bargain Block,” about house renovation/contractor aces Evan Thomas and Keith Bynum.

These two very white gay guys (partners in business and life) left Colorado to buy up blocks of Detroit’s most run-down neighborhoods one house at a time. Some properties, purchased from the Detroit Land Bank Authority, cost them only $1,000. Others were more, depending on the condition.

Whatever profits they make from each sale goes into the next house. Shea Hicks-Whitfield is their energetic, Detroit–based real estate agent.

I have mixed feelings on the whole “Bargain Block” process, as well as some of Keith’s garish design choices, but in the end, it’s a good thing and results in better neighborhoods. And I like that they live in the house as they renovate until it’s sold to a first-time home buyer.

A part of me wishes they had found my grandparents’ old house on Wilfred and renovated it for a new family to enjoy as much as mine did.

Because in my 6-year-old mind back in 1966, that home was my castle.