Miranda Lambert sings about her childhood home in her Grammy winning single, “The House That Built Me.” The song has inspired many to knock on the front door of their childhood home in the hope of experiencing the kind of evangelical moment that Miranda hopes she’ll have if she can step inside that old house and “take nothing but a memory.”
I did that years ago and found the experience to be less than divine. The House That Built Me, a drafty, musty Dutch Colonial built in 1922 on a postage stamp lot at the entrance to a public park in Baldwin, Long Island (New York) had been totally redone. So much so, I didn't recognize much of the interior. You can't go home again, son. Not that I'd really want to.
Find an old car, much like you remember, and it's a time machine taking you back in a way you would think a traipse through your old home would. If you had a childhood like mine, best you proceed down memory lane carefully.
My mother didn't drive and hated taking the bus so she would commission my cousin Margo to chauffeur her where she wanted to go in her light blue, 1957 Chevrolet. On occasion, my younger brother and I would get to tag along.
My mother was her best self whenever Margo was around, but I knew it was just a matter of time before she'd return to her angry, hair trigger tempered old self when she wasn't. In Miranda Lambert's song she doesn't sing about loving The House so much as she loves the memories it holds for her. I see a '57 Chevrolet and I don't know if I love the memories I have of it, few and fleeting as they are, as much as I see a shelter from the storm.
I'd love to take a ride in Margo's '57 Chevrolet, again. Just leave mom at the house.
Very Nice !
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