Our house was a 1910 stucco house with a wraparound front porch. The sixteen steps that led to the porch made a perfect snow-packed slope on winter days. We would fly down the steps on metal saucers and land in a pile of snow at the edge of the curb.
Inside, the front hall held an old out-of-tune piano, which none of us were allowed to play because Mr. Norling, who lived next door, said it was warped and could never be properly tuned. Mr. Norling tuned the pianos at the White House, therefore, his word was sacrosanct. So, the piano held family photos and silently reminded us we could not read music, let alone play it.
The living room, dining room, and front hall were large rooms with big windows. There were pocket doors between the living and dining rooms, which were used as stage curtains for our dramatic productions. Otherwise, they were never shut. The kitchen was big enough for a table and six chairs but that wasn’t big enough for all of us to sit, so we ate most meals in the dining room with a rotation of lunch or breakfast eaters in the kitchen.
The sun room, beyond the dining room, was mostly windows, and must have been so named because there was no heat in there, save the warmth of the sun. Sometime in the first few years of my life, our small television broke and wasn’t replaced. But when Jack Kennedy died, my father went out and bought a television. He wasn’t a Kennedy worshipper, by any means, but I’m sure he thought this was an important event for all of us. Not being a fan — of television, not JFK — my mother insisted the TV be put in the unfinished basement, where we donned hats and gloves to watch our favorite shows. (You’re beginning get the idea we had to generate our own warmth, right?) She relented after a few years, and the sunroom became the place to watch TV. My dad even installed a couple of radiators eventually.
On the second floor there were four bedrooms, a sleeping porch, and one large bath with a gigantic, claw-foot tub. The third floor had two bedrooms and a similar bathroom. When I was little, Dennis and Joe inhabited the aerie, then Kevin and Brian when my older brothers flew the coop.
Besides the house, there was a yard that was typical city-sized and a one car garage that sat in the back corner of the yard. It was a yard would come to host many celebrations, happy and sad—most often both.
Life of Reillys 