My neighbors house is being torn down and I am greatly saddened by the news.
05/27/2003
I had met Ms. Retha when I first moved into my house in 1998. She was good friends of the family I bought the house from. She was one of the nutty old ladies that lived down the street. We shared lots of Iced tea and neighborly chit chat. She used to stop me each evening as I walked by to check on the progress of the construction/remodel. She could see the men coming and going and hear the noise but couldn’t see from her kitchen window.
She was too feeble by that time to make the trip down the block to take a look herself. She walked with a walker and managed to get around her house ok, but had a few spills and didn’t dare go much further. I would take the photographs down to her as I got them developed. She would oh and ah about the new framing, the sheet rock and paint. It was nice to share with her. I loved listening to her stories about how the cows used to roam along the fence on my property. The road was dirt and didn’t go any further. The house was in the country the then, outside of the city limits. Her husband used to sell milk & eggs from the cinderblock structure that is in the back of the lot. It was the first neighborhood store.
She passed a few years ago, she took a tumble down the steps, broke a hip and never came back from the nursing home. The house has been vacant since she left. Her children had come and gotten all of her possessions and distributed them among the family. I knew the house was up for sale and they wanted a good price for it. I had called but it was out of my price range. I was hoping that some nice person would purchase it and remodel the house. Tomorrow a little piece of my personal Texas history will be gone. I managed to snap a few photographs of the house for myself but it will soon be just a memory of Ms. Retha on the corner. Ms. Retha looking out for me from the kitchen window as I walked by.
