Wayne Avenue Days by L.S.A. Hoyt

Author:L.S.A. Hoyt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co.

Geneva Violet

Until we were aged seven and ten years old, respectively, Charlotte and I shared our parents’ bedroom and June shared the room next door with Auntie and Granny. Grampop slept in the small room off the living room that had been David and Jerusha’s bedroom decades before. As an adult, looking back, I don’t know how it worked; it must have been especially difficult for our parents, as a couple. I was pretty oblivious and was completely unaware of any difficulty related to the situation. I went to bed at 7:30 p.m. on school nights and 9:00 p.m. on weekends and slept like a baby through ‘til morning.

Whatever intimacies that were shared in that room were pretty hush-hush. Eventually, I guess enough was enough though, because that year, 1957, the attic space was painted and wallpapered and then, June, Charlotte, and I moved upstairs.

That was also the year that the plumber/contractor came and installed our new pink and gray marble tiled bathroom, in the room that Granny always referred to as the “little kitchen.” It was the original kitchen when the three-room house was built by Great-Grandpa David. After that, until 1957, it had provided a pantry of sorts and included a large chest freezer, a tall metal cabinet, painted white with a small, red lever-type handle, which held spice jars, canning supplies, extra canned items, as well as sewing and laundry supplies. Under the stairs stood our red, cardboard toy chest, with illustrations of nursery rhymes covering its entire surface, in navy blue and white outline drawings. There was a clock drawn on the lid with metal hands that you could manipulate to practice telling time, right next to the spot where the cow was jumping over the moon. It contained rag dolls, my Shirley Temple doll, toy dishes, stuffed animals, building blocks, balls, and jacks. The board games were stacked under the buffet server in the dining room, as well as Charlotte’s Wanda Walker doll, undisturbed in her original box.

Yes, I said “installed,” not “renovated.” The original bathroom still exists, in its original form, down the path from the back door, covered in its original cedar shingles held in place by the very nails driven by Davey June’s claw hammer back in the day. Before the indoor bathroom was installed, there were two commodes in the house -- one in Granny’s room and one in Grandpa’s room, for use during the night if needed. Enough said.

So, prior to 1957 sometimes if Mom and Dad were going out for a Friday evening, which they occasionally did as he was a member of the Red Men’s Lodge and she of the sister lodge, the Rebeccas, Mom took a sponge bath via basin in our shared room and dressed up, occasionally after I was asleep. Once I remember waking and watching her. She was wearing a slip and a gray, herringbone-shaped beaded choker and earrings and applied her “Evening in Paris” scented, body powder with a giant pink puff. She

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