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Hammond 1 Joseph Hammond Professor Gazzaniga English 101 13 September 2019 The Home with White Siding I remember a place deep within my memory with four walls, two large stories, all covered by white siding surrounding the house. Many windows, specifically one room full of windows made especially for sunlight to shine in during the day and moonlight to glimmer in within the night. An old, upgraded farmhouse built within the early eighties, however beautifully renovated in most recent times. Looking out the front windows of the house only seeing the large oak tree out in the front of the yard. Taller than every other tree, taller than even the house itself, always swaying in the wind, hearing the rustling of the leaves. I remember one specific memory, walking in through the front door is followed by a step up into the house, walking in immediately feeling at home. Upon walking in smelling a sweet smell of cinnamon, all throughout the house with white siding. Ten steps into the house you finally walk into the kitchen area filled with beautiful wooden oak cabinets, brown stain colored, with a kind glimmer, cabinets surrounding the whole kitchen. Looking out the kitchen window seeing plenty and plenty of trees swaying within the wind, hearing the leaves rustling with everyone. Within about twenty steps more you finally stumble upon the room designated and filled with light. Brown leather couches fill the room along with the tv and pictures along the wall filled of past family members. Looking around you notice sitting on those comfy leather couches are two of the brightest, kindest faces

Hammond 2 in the world. As they spring up from the couch with joy in their eyes, presenting their arms opened wide looking for a hug, while finding comfort within their warm touch you realize this is home, this is happiness. As you proceed through the house you find bedrooms, guest bedrooms as a matter of fact. The walls covered in white paint, with pictures on each wall showing the past of what was and what is. As you continue more you finally reach a larger old wooden staircase, perfect for kids to run up and down on. You walk up the stairs with creaking with each step as the cold wood hits your feet. Reaching the top of the stairs you see a bathroom, some bedrooms, and what looks to be an office. It’s almost a messy feel up here, nothing is exactly organized, however exactly in the place where it should be. Filled with light all throughout the home you have a sense of comfort with every step taken, you’re here, you’re home. The relationship with this place and the people who reside in it goes way back to my first couple of breaths and a place growing up that I would spend running the halls with friends and family filled with laughs, while sliding around the brown oak wood floor in my sock feet. This home, not house, but home, is located near my own home. You may think that this is home, however its been more of a second home, or maybe even a home on another home. My grandparents live in the home that is surrounded by white siding next to the large oak tree. Being there since my first breath and being there for every breath since has made them quite close to me you could say. Growing up, coming in through the back door, walking up through the deck on a beautiful day in my barefoot feet in the scorching summer heat, feeling the scolding hot wood on the bottom of my skin while running to the door running in to say hello each day. Then in the winter it’d be running through the cold snow daily to say hello as well with a hug hello and a hug goodbye always. With me seeing me my grandparents almost everyday for almost my

Hammond 3 whole life, and their house being so close to mine we became very close. However, their history of them in the house goes back nearly 40 years. They originally found this farmhouse back in the eighties and bought it moving out of their suburban home to a more spacious place to where their two boys would have more room to just be kids and have more space to do just that. Then moving forward about 20 years, I was born along with the birth of my actual home that is built right next to their house. So, I had very easy access growing up next to the house and my grandparents every single day. Many of my greatest memories and life lessons I learned within this special house, so I imagine it will stay with me forever and ever. Growing up about the age of eight I began to learn piano; my grandmother had been playing since she was a child. Throughout the house next to the kitchen sat the dining room, within the right corner of the dining room sat a huge black shiny grand piano. Eighty-eight keys in full, all beautifully made and cleaned. There were many days spent watching my grandmother move her hands across the shiny white keys and watching the strings vibrate throughout the piano and creating the beautiful music within. Eventually I began to have a want to take up piano, so under the piano in the dining room sat a small black bench and we both sat down and I was taught to play, keeping and growing those skills all the way up to this day. Many other days throughout my childhood was spent having family parties there, running around with my cousins and other family friends. All in our sock feet chasing each other with footsteps pounding and sliding on the brown oak wood floor with an occasional “slow down!” and the echoes off the walls with plenty of laughs. So naturally with me being there at the home so often I knew where everything was, everything had its place. So, when we threw family parties it was always people asking me where to find things such as the shiny sterling silver cutlery ware or the yellow

Hammond 4 flowery plates and bowls housed within the cabinets of the kitchen. Knowing everything about the home gave me a great connection to it, however I believe without the people that the home houses, I believe it wouldn’t have any meaning to me. Just another place with four walls and a floor, I believe this is what makes a house a home, the people inside it and the love they share, that is what makes a place special, giving it significance and a feeling of it being home, a place that you can always come back to when the world isn’t exactly the way it should be, a place where you can hide away from the world if needed, a place of safety. This place is the last thing I look at leaving out of my gravel driveway, I always wave goodbye looking in through the kitchen window, sometimes to my grandparents who are standing doing dishes, or sometimes to just say goodbye to the house itself. However, when I’m away from Northern Kentucky where the beautiful house sits, it’s often in my mind, with me waiting again to see it and the bright faces who sit within it. Looking on to the future I know however things do not last forever, I know eventually that the house won’t always have the same meaning that it does to me currently and the same meaning that I’ve had in the past of it. But I think maybe my perception of it will always change as I continue to grow and change things. But I’ll always remember the days running around on the cold wood floors, sometimes maybe even falling on those wooden floors, oh, the pain that could bring. Also remembering all the nights spent there with my grandparents watching new and old movies on the flat screen tv sitting with in the room of windows. All the nights also spent falling asleep to my grandfather reading to me with the yellow lamp light shining off the walls as I look up at the white ceiling listening to the crazy adventures of Indiana Jones, always falling asleep before we could even get through a chapter of the book. With remembering all the lessons as well that I learned growing up there,

Hammond 5 making me who I am today. I believe any place can have worth to any person but not just because of the four walls, floor, and ceiling that surround the place, not because of the expensive commodities you have inside either, but what you’ve experienced inside of it that it has to offer. The memories of what was and what is, the first and the last, the feelings you had when you were there or continue to be there. It’s the meaning when you can remember meeting your best friend and the amazing lasting friendship that all started there, or finding your passions maybe, or possibly meeting your first love, or just time spent bonding with someone close to you and the happiness that it brings you. It’s not the buildings we own or objects that we use to take up our time, but it’s the memories that give them their worth and the people who we remember forever within them up until the second we take our very last breath. That’s what makes four walls, a floor, and a ceiling, a place that has meaning to a person, that’s what makes a house, a home....