My House
The Source
Paul Findley, years ago in a very kind article, described my house as “a charming little bungalow.” That’s why Paul was elected to eleven terms in Congress. The guy can make you feel good in even the most humbling circumstances. The earliest deed I can find to my property is dated 1848. This would have been before I moved to town. I assume that some house or another was soon built on the property once owned by Francis Arenz, the town’s founder. A more recent description of my home was given me two years ago by a local builder who said, “Ken, you’re the only person I’ve told this, but you’re going to out-live your house.” When most people hear creaks and groans in their nighttime floorboards, they simply turn over in bed and smile at the comfy knowledge that their house is well worn. For me, I always wonder if it’s the sound dying patients make with their last, rasping breath. Assuming that my insurance agent doesn’t read this paper, I’ll admit that the electric wiring in my basement is still wrapped in the cloth. I said “cloth.” Pre-rubber. Pre-plastic. Perhaps pre-God. I’m not sure what day of creation brought us insulated wiring. I assume that my attic is similarly equipped as a museum of archaic architecture and rudimentary electrifying. I don’t know. I went up there once on the day I bought the house but haven’t had the reason…or courage…to make a return visit. I didn’t leave anything in the attic and have had no reason to go back. But…and this is the truly remarkable thing. When I purchased the house at auction some thirty years ago, I had no idea it was a magic house. No..it deserves capitalization.. A Magic House! For example, the tables mysteriously disappear. No matter how many tables I bring into my home, their surfaces are gone within days. I’ll place a new table beside my couch and within hours…poof!.. It’s disappeared under a collection of magazines, books, and advertising fliers. I am quite positive that when I moved into my Arenzville abode that I had a kitchen table, but for the life of me I have no idea where it’s gone. In fact, the same magical qualities seem to have inhabited every square inch of flat surface in my house. I used to have a humidifier. Now all that I see is a stack of sheet music. My coffee table has mysteriously turned into a bookshelf, and even the tank cover on my commode now resembles a newsstand. I’m telling you, it’s magic. I even lose rooms. My bedroom was the first actual room to disappear when I bought the house. I looked at the original deed and indeed, a bedroom is listed. No longer. A decade-long battle with migraine headaches made me forego any hopes of sleeping in a bed so my former boudoir became a repository for costumes. I have a note attached to one closet explaining to my family why I have seven wedding gowns under plastic. But the bedroom itself? Shazam! It’s history. Oh, you may have your own tales of sock-eating clothes driers and missing cats, but a whole room? Houdini, eat your heart out. And no, I’m not a candidate for American Hoarders or Trash This House. My cleaning lady comes in every week and like H.M. Stanley searching for the elusive Dr. Livingstone in Africa, rediscovers my tabletops and once even claimed she’d found the bed. It was under a pile of Man of La Mancha costumes. I call it my Spanish décor. Blackstone the Magician! used to do an illusion called “The Shrinking Woman!” (Blackstone loved exclamation marks.) He’d put a woman in a box, decant a few incantations, then whamo! .. he’d reveal a tiny woman inside an even tinier black box. I’ve done him one better. My entire house is shrinking. I remember the day I bought the house…devoid of furniture, six spacious rooms.. I even remember rehearsing an entire play cast dance number in my kitchen. (One of the few houses in Arenzville with a piano in the kitchen.) But something…very…strange… has . . . happened. Over the years the dimensions of my bungalow have shrunk to the size of a bunga-lette. The walls have crept in. Fearing that perhaps I had simply collected too much stuff, I bought an storage shed last fall and ..presto-chango!.. the house expanded again. But in the space of a few short months the shrinkage …like old underwear…started creeping up on me. You think this is strange? You should hear about my phantom plumbing.