Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Mrs. R reminds me that today marks the 15th anniversary of the day the Family Robbo moved into Port Swiller Manor.
This increases the record for length of time ol’ Robbo has lived in any one place. (The second slot belongs to his boyhood home in San Antonio into which he moved in 1974 and resided until he went away to college in the fall of 1983.) Barring some unforeseen circumstances, I can’t think of any particular reason why I should not live here for another fifteen or twenty years, unless I’m either nuked at my downtown office or carried out of here in a box, whichever comes sooner.
I gripe here from time to time about various money pit crises such as the flooding basement saga, but overall I take much satisfaction and even comfort in learning and knowing the quirks of the place (which was originally built in the early 70’s and had only one family owners before us).
Of course, we’ve done a great deal of customizing, tinkering and repairing since we moved in. I remember an incident about three years after the fact when one of the daughters of teh former owners appeared on the doorstep with what I believe to have been her fiancee. They were passing through the area and she wanted to show him the house in which she had grown up. Of course, I was quite willing to let her have the run of the place, but I can never forget the look on her face as she clapped eyes on the front hall and took in what we had already done to it, realizing that her home as she remembered it was gone forever. She declined to come in, and after a very brief stroll around the yard, cleared off. I felt a bit sad for her but not apologetic.
I suppose it’s true that you really can’t go home again and I sometimes wonder what it will be like if and when my own children come back to see the place once they’ve gone out into the world. Given current trends around here, once Mrs. R and I are out the place most likely will be bulldozed and a McMansion constructed in it’s stead. Eh.
Well, given the subject of my musing, what else can I do except to post the obvious musick video:
The Port Stands At Your Elbow 
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October 21, 2015 at 5:23 am
quiltbabe
Last week I had to go to the city from which I moved four years ago. Good gravy, I didn’t recognize half of it. And it’s a no-space-between suburb of MKE, as is my current home. It wasn’t until recently I really understood my parents and grandparents constant use of “that used to be…”
October 21, 2015 at 9:26 am
NOVA Curmudgeon
McMansionizing is in full swing in our neighborhood. I have a folder of letters from developers and realtors wanting to purchase the homestead. When the time comes we will let the bidding begin.
October 21, 2015 at 3:15 pm
nightfly
Same thing on the infrequent chances I get to go back to Long Island. I lived the first seven years of my life in my grandparents’ house, which was once the only full-time residence on the block, surrounded by summer-only homes, really just glorified double-wides, on small sandy plots across the street from the Great South Bay. All different and built up now; my grandparents’ former home is now the most modest home on the block, and the garage has gone, and the shingles replaced by siding. The past truly is a foreign country, as the saying goes.
Sometimes I will go back in dreams to a version of the home with labyrinth hallways, extra rooms, and hidden passages. It took a while to realize that this in part must be how the place seemed to me when I was a small boy, exploring during the summers when the parents were at work and it was just me and Nana.