Throwback Thursday # 59: The House That Built Me

"Won't take nothing but a memory, from the house that built me..." ~Miranda Lambert, The House That Built Me

Last weekend while I was at Relay for Life, I spent the night in my childhood home.  A double-wide trailer that I lived in my entire life until I left for college.  I hadn't been back in this house for years.  It seemed smaller, somehow.  Maybe because it's packed full of memories.

There is a piece of paneling, on the wall next to he kitchen table. On it, are small hash marks and numbers in my Dad's handwriting. Each mark showing how much my brother and I had grown in the year before.

The hash marks might show you how much taller we got, but if you want to see how we grew, you don't need to look at the paneling. You just need to look at that old house and the memories that it holds.

The rock fireplace where we would practice FFA speeches, pull down our stockings on Christmas morning, blow dry frozen calves in front of the fire, and take family photos every Thanksgiving.

 The kitchen sink where my mom used to wash my hair, and where we ran water over my finger that I almost cut off before we  headed to the hospital for stitches.   The wall where all of our showing banners were hung with excitement each fall.  The picture windows that I was sure my parents would spy out of when I was being dropped off from a date, and out of which my brother used to shoot skunks in the front yard, and Gran used to peak her head in to see if we were awake before coming to the front door in the mornings. 

The living room floor where I had tea parties with my mom and my grandmas, read books with my dad, and watched Alf on tv. 

The bedroom where I got ready for kindergarten graduation and the proms and played camping with Cradle friend and talked about crushes with Teacher Friend. 

The ledge on the front porch where the swallows would build their nest every year and where the old kindling stand sat that my Gran would hide Cadberry eggs every Easter.  The nail holes in my bedroom wall where I had posters of the original Dream Team and George Strait.  The closet that held my mom's "Taos skirt" that my brother decided to take scissors to when he was 4 years old (and for which he proceeded to get a major spanking).

The kitchen table where we ate dinner every night as a family, where we did homework and 4-H record books and science fair projects, and blew out countless birthday candles.  

The spot next to the front door where dirty "barn shoes" were to be removed before manure was tracked through the house.  The phone on the wall where I got my first call from a boy and the corner where over 20 years of Christmas trees stood. 

It may be a trailer house.  And it may be small.  But the memories it holds are something you cannot measure.  It really was the house that built me.