The House on Gaither Road

The very first house I lived in, as I vaguely recall, was an old farmhouse on Gaither Road in Sykesville, Maryland. (It may have been Gaither Manor Road, which are connected.)

It was very similar to the one my grandparents lived in. Theirs was built in the early 1900s, so I suppose this one was too, although I can't say for certain. This old  house has since burned down according to my mom (no one was injured) and the area has since been built up with cookie cutter suburban homes. 

I lived in this dingy, scary house until I was about five years old. I have a few distinct memories from this house, such as a cracked window pane in one of the windows in my brother's small bedroom to the left of the landing at the top of the stairs. Both my brother and I were forbidden to go near it for obvious safety reasons. 

One day, I wanted my mother's attention. Or maybe I just wanted a band-aid, which my mother treated like precious gems. A scraped knee did not qualify for a band-aid in my house, oh no. They were too expensive to be wasted on such small things like skinned knees or paper cuts. You had to have a serious injury in order to qualify for a band-aid.

I guess I was about four years old at the time. I deliberately swiped my finger across the jagged edge of the cracked glass, cutting the tip of my finger. I got my band-aid. I got her attention, if only briefly. (I'm so terrible!)

My bedroom had a steep, narrow curving staircase leading up to the attic. I was so afraid that a ghost, or worse yet, a monster would walk right down those stairs and into my bedroom at night. 

Well, one night it happened. Something black flew around my room. I screamed, terrified. My parents rushed to my room. My dad killed it while my mother plucked me out of my bed. Turned out that it wasn't a monster after all, but a bat. Same difference in my child mind. 

From then on, I feared sleeping in that room. 

We had two dogs that lived outside, although I don't remember their names. One had a chicken bone stuck in this throat. My parents couldn't afford to have it surgically removed so the dog just lived with it. The dog constantly wheezed and coughed. These dogs didn't move with us so I'm not sure what happened to them.

One neighbor kept a turkey, among other animals. Even though our property was separated by a chain link fence, the turkey would come right up to the fence, shaking it's feathers, gobble, gobble, gobbling, puffing up its chest to look bigger than he was. Well, he was bigger than me. I was so scared of that bird. Playing in the yard, feeding the dogs, whatever we were doing on our side of the fence seem to aggravate that bird. 

One time, as the turkey came a gobble, gobble, gobbling toward me while I was playing, I remember my brother yelling "Stay away from my sister, turkey."  

The neighbor girl was named Stacy. She had an annoying older brother like I did. One day they were playing football. I joined in to the annoyance of my brother. One of them tossed the football at me. I jumped up to catch it but instead of catching it, the pointy end of the football smacked me in my eye. I got a black eye. My brother got blamed for it. 

At the time, my parents had a van, but it didn't have any seats in the back. It was for hauling things. My brother and I had to sit in the back of it, my dad driving, my mom in the only other seat on the passenger side. I had to hold ice over my swollen eye while my brother and I slide around the back of it like marbles.  

I don't remember where we were driving to, though. This was back in the day when there were no child safety seat or booster seat requirements like there are today. Heck, wearing a seat belt was optional back then. Laws mandating wearing a driver's side or front passenger side seat belt didn't come until I was in elementary school and it was a hotly contested debate too, which seems silly now.

We moved away from the house on Gaither Road when I was five when my parents built a house on Bear Branch Road (where they continue to live, by the way) right down the street from my grandparents. For a time, my aunt and uncle and four cousins lived next door. My great Hazel and Uncle Bill, plus their brood of kids, lived up the street and around the corner. 

There was no getting away with anything.

What are your childhood memories of your first house?