Chapter IV continued.

Our new house was very different from the old house in Redmondville,aside from just the setting of course.By comparison to that house,our new place was squat and low to the ground,more of a rectangle than a square.Not counting basement or attic,it had only one floor.A typical 1960's bungalow,just like most of the other houses around it.Because it's ceilings were low,it did not have an open,windy feel like our old place.Being new it was likely better insulated as well,so it always felt warm.It's windows were higher off the floor too.In the old house I could easily look outside.In our new house,in the living room,I could crawl up on the back of the couch and look out the big picture window.But all of the other windows were far too high for me to see out. The view out that window was very different too.Here the street-a street,not a road-was much closer to the house.There were no trees on the other side of the street,and,because our street was paved and finished,there was no ditch.The other side of the street had houses,just like on our side,and I could watch people coming and going from those houses.The traffic in the street passed by much slower as well.

I recall our new kitchen really clearly.It had white walls above the table where we ate and the cabinets were of highly varnished wood.The floor was of brown and white tile,in a regularly alternating pattern.One of those tiles was discolored and loose.It was right in front of the refrigerator,four tiles over from the door,and in the third row of tiles as you entered the kitchen from the hallway.Eventually a man came to fix the tile,but that seemed like a very long time after we arrived,and my parents wondered if he would ever come.When he did,he had a little blue hand held torch,which I was afraid of because it made both noise and fire.The man played the lit torch across the tile,and I thought he would burn down our new home.It made a bad smell too.In a short time he had pulled up the old tile and replaced it with a new one.I was very happy to see that man leave,and I worried for a while that he might come back.

Once my mother had arranged her things in the cupboards,the arrangement never changed.Under the sink she kept things like Ajax and dish soap and a bunch of other cleaning supplies.We were encouraged to stay out of there,but it was never locked.Beside those doors,to the right she kept the cereal and bags of flour and sugar.The two staples in that cupboard were cornflakes,in a box with a brightly colored rooster on it,and some sort of puffed rice,or wheat that came in a big bag.There were usually other boxes of cereal in there as well..There was always at least one bag of Robin Hood  Flour in it's bright yellow bag in there as well,along with a device which my mother would use to sift that flour.Above the counter,on that side of the sink,she kept all of the glasses,plates,saucers and cups.Utensils were kept in a drawer just to the right of the sink.Over on the other side of the sink,my mother kept all of her pots and pans.I discovered that I could crawl into that cupboard and hide,though I would always make so much noise I'm certain everyone knew where I was.Above the counter on that side my mother kept various baking supplies-cake mix,salt,pepper,a small bowl of sugar,peanut butter,ketchup,vanilla,butter,dried mustard,as well as mustard in a bottle,along with hundreds of other things.There were cabinets above the stove and refrigerator as well.Among the things kept there were boxes of photographs in slide form,which my parents would sometimes take down and ,with a projector show on a white sheet pinned up on the wall.There were other things in those cabinets as well,but, for the most part they remained a mystery.

Down the hallway to the right as you left the kitchen were the rest of the rooms of the house.Three bedrooms and a bathroom.The bathroom was small and clean and ordinary,with a tub,sink and toilet.The rooms,as I recall them were pink,blue and green,all pastel.Two of the bedrooms faced the street,while the other,and the bathroom faced the back yard.

There was a set of stairs just beside the back door that led to the basement.At first the basement was plain and empty with unpainted concrete floors.But,the longer we lived there,the more cluttered it became.For as long as I can remember,water would accumulate on the basement floor.It could get really dusty down there too.There was another thing in the basement too,which I did not like.It was big and green,and if you opened a small door in the front of it,you could see fire.It was almost as big as my father and I always thought of it as a monster and tried to stay as far away from it as room would allow.The furnace!

My mother and father kept things under the basement steps too.There always seemed to be a tire or two under there.Tires were heavy,and they had a odor that I was not sure I liked,but I could usually drag one out and roll it from one end of the basement to the other.We had a cat too,a white one with a blue eye and a green one,ans she liked to hide under the stairs,inside the tires,because we would not chase her under there.

Above the main hallway,just outside the bedrooms and the bathroom there was a hatch in the ceiling that led up to the attic.The attic was a mystery.Not only could I not reach the hatch,but I'd never been in the attic,not even once.Every so often my parents would dig out a ladder and go up there looking for something,but I was never allowed to go up there with them.So,of course,I wanted to.But for many years it remained the one room in the house which I'd never been in.