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| "The house was quiet . . .
part of the meaning, part of the mind . . ." |
The House Was Quiet and The World Was Calm
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
by Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)
of 443 as shared by a previous resident,
Robert W. Topping (1925 - 2009)
on Tricycle & Bicycle
Click to see more photos from the Topping Era
Please enjoy Bob's childhood recollecions,
interspersed with a few current - day photographs:
"The kitchen was a nightmare for a kitchen designer. It had two huge windows and the remnant of a chimney on the south wall; two doors,an exit and a door to the rather generous pantry on the west wall; a door to the dining room and one to the living room on the north wall (not to mention the north wall had an offset); and the east wall had doors to the basement and a back stairway to the second floor. All of those obstacles left barely enough room for a kitchen cabinet, a sink, a refigerator, and agas range, though somehow Mother seemed to make it all work. She produced a lot of goodies in it, as did my sisters, and sometimes even my father. He could produce a tasty meatloaf with a half pound of hamburger, a week's supply of lefovers from the refrigerator, and a couple of cups of stale bread crumbs from the bread drawers. I recall one meatloaf he made with leftovers that included leftover meatloaf. Haha!
"Upstairs, off the main hall, were three bedrooms: the south room occupied by my sisters, the north "study," occupied by each of us five brothers at various times, and the east room of my parents. Off the east room was a smaller room, called an alcove, which included two sizeable clothes closets and a dormer window as well as a white iron crib. It was the room which served a nursery for all four of mother's children. It was "my room" until I was about four or five. I had my "stuff" in a lower drawer in one of my parents' high - boy chiffoniers.
"The bathroom had two small walk - in closets, a clawfoot bathtub, and a large sink surrounded by a marble top and splashback, and also a dormer window, giving any occupant of the toilet a fairly grandiose western sweep of our backyard, garage, and Littleton Street beyond.
"The third floor -- we called it the attic -- was wide open until Daddy built two larger dormer style rooms with beds in each. That is where my brother Dale and I slept when we got older. In the Depression years, my folks took in students from time to time, and they lived on the third floor. They helped my mother with housework or did chores in the yard for room and board. I remember only two of those students, Louis and Ezra, the latter a French horn player in the Purdue marching band. My father may have been partial to horn players; both he and Grandpa Topping had played baritone horn in the Kanawaka Township Band back in the 1880s.
"The garage, by the way, was built by my father from the lumber he salvaged when he dismantled the barn that sat at the rear of our rather generous yard. I never saw the barn; it was torn down long before I was born, but it was not unlike others that still existed on our neighbors' properties when I was a tyke running about the neighborhood. Remember -- barns were the garages of the nineteenth century; horses were the principal means of transportation and barns supplied not only their housing but a place to store buggies, tack, and horse "fuel": hay and oats.
One of the Topping boys
in front of the new garage
that Dad built
A view of the garage in foreground (looking east to west)
with the northbound neighbor's barn in the background
[frosty garage windows & fenceposts]
A panoramic view (left to right) of:
1. neighboring garage to the south
2. 443 plus big barn with hayloft
3. additional outbuildings to the north
"My father and mother were foragers; both had been farm kids when the pursuit of foodstuff was a daily, mainstream activity. Even the squirrels which abounded in our neighborhood, buried walnuts all over our yard. The yard was dotted with fruit trees my father planted: Montmorency cherry; several varieties of apple; pear, peach, even an apricot tree. The vegetable garden area which replaced the barn included a strawberry patch, a lengthy row of rhubarb, blackberry bushes, and even a gooseberry bush which today is probably an endangered if not extinct species. If you ask someone if they've ever eaten gooseberry pie, and they reply (with relish) that they have, you know they must have been born before 1932.
"Along the north line next to the neighbor's rapidly deteriorating barn was Father's pride and joy: A Concord grape arbor which produced neither wine -- heaven forbid! -- nor even canned grape juice, but case after case of twenty-four glass jars each of the finest, clearest grape jelly that my mother could produce or that I have ever tasted.
"The jars of grape jelly were stored in our "fruit cellar" together with mother's pickle relish and canned peaches plus a seemingly endless supply of mincemeat which she and Daddy produced every fall from the ripened apples of a half dozen trees. There were also Ball Mason quarts of pie cherries picked from four or five trees by us kids. I remember it as one of the first family chores I engaged in."
A tradition we have carried on during our years at 443
-- except that ours is made from homegrown green tomatoes!
Talented Residents
Renovations
Christmas Fencepost
Vintage Fenceposts
Property Line
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, June 14th
Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ 443 Photos: "Historic" & "Current"
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com
Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com
You’ve not only done a wonderful job with the home, your blog/Facebook postings put it all together. Barbara
ReplyDeleteThanks Barbara! I am grateful for your visits over the years.
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