Da ja vue

Growing up my family visited my Grandpa and Grandma Page and Grandpa and Grandma Smith. They lived just down the road and around the corner from each other. Sometimes when Mama's brother, Uncle Star's family was visiting we would go from one house to the other across the field. We would march in the appropriate number while singing The Ants Go Marching. They had 6 children and we had 6 children in our family too at that time.

When I was 7 we moved to Colorado. When I was 11 we moved back to Kansas, rural Rosalia to be more accurate, from Coal Creek Canyon, Colorado. My Grandpa Page passed away, and we moved back to help with the farm for my Grandma. We lived with my Grandma for a time, until our house was moved in next door to her. There were 4 of us girls and we all shared a bedroom. After a time, Grandma Page suggested that some of us girls could have a bedroom at her house. I did stay at her house at night and kept my bedroom there in the south room. Robin and Becky stayed there too in the north bedroom. I loved my room.

There are pine cones and pine needles on the wallpaper. I think it was, and is a reminder of our time in Colorado. I kept that room through most of my high school years. Several times I have reminisced with old classmates, they always remember staying at Grandma Page's house.

We had our Page family Christmas this last weekend in Wichita. I went to Rosalia, on Friday night with Soni and the kids, and spent the night with Mama. She now lives in Grandma Page's old house. As you come up the stairs one of my old horse pictures used to hang there, thumbtacked up by Grandma. I took it home about 10 years ago and finally put it in a frame. Now the picture with the sequins that used to hang over Grandma's TV hangs there.

Not much has changed in my old room. The wallpaper remains the same, with the border that Grandma so meticulously placed on the slanted ceiling. I don't know how that little old lady did such a detailed job of things. She had palsy from the time she was 13 I believe. Her hands shook quite a bit.

There are familiar pictures on the walls, the white kitten with the orchids, and the Washington Monument in the spring with the cherry blooms. The old bookshelf full of really old books. I remember reading some of them, Riders of the Purple Sage, by Zane Gray, and The Shepherd of the Hills, by Harold Bell Wright. The old plastic curtains discenegrated eventually, and have been replaced by some pretty sage green ones. The old bed frame is still in use, along with the pretty blue reading light.

The closet door is still cream and green and matches the old attic door on the east side of the room. A new attic door has replaced the old curtain that used to hang over the opening on the west side. The attic in this house is the space on the outer part of the upstairs where the roof comes down. There are 2 openings on the walls on either side of both bedrooms. Both rooms had a door on one of the openings. In the north room the curtain is still the original on the attic door.

Of course I put my personality into my room while I was there. Horse pictures that I moved to my new room at home the summer before my senior year, have long been packed away.

While David and I were dating, and I was still staying at Grandma's, he would call me on the phone and I would sit by the desk on the floor while we talked or just listened to each other breathe when we couldn't think of anything else to say. When he would come out to spend time with me, we used to go and sit on the porch swing undetected, and listen to Grandma play the piano. She would play hymns and old songs. She never thought she could play very well so if she knew we were there she would stop playing. Sometimes we would go in a visit for a while before we said goodnight. We really enjoyed and miss those times with her.

I really enjoyed my little trip down memory lane.