La Casa Poquita Rosa

Unconventional us

It wasn’t a very orthodox thing to do.

In 1995, Laura and I bought “The Little House Up the Street.”

From 1988 until then, we had been living in “The Number One House,” or “The Number Three House,” or both.

The two mobile homes are still “back there,” in the mobile home court behind the leather shop building. For a romantic while, we had our kitchen and living room in Number One and our bedroom in Number Three.

But then opportunity knocked. A for-sale sign appeared in front of The Little House Up the Street. Our friend and neighbor Rueben and his wife had lived there until their deaths.

After that, La Casa Poquito was inhabited for several years by German (Pronounced “Herr Mahn”) Batrez and family. German had a big family. I mean, a big, big, family. Which is in a roundabout way why the structure was on the market.

See, German’s wife had issued an ultimatum. She said she hadn’t signed on to be cook and laundress for German’s whole family. It was her or them. German chose them.

To settle the divorce, German was forced to sell the house. Enter, Tom and Laura.

We liked it primarily because of its proximity to our workplace. We could, and still do, walk to work from our home. We had given some thought to establishing our residence in the store building itself. Lord knows there’s enough room.

But I didn’t like the idea of being always “at work.” And Laura was fond of the idea of having her own “real” home. After we lived in a travel trailer, a series of apartments and mobile homes, and various make-do situations, I heartily agreed.

We paid about $50,000 for the worn-out little 100-year-old stick-built railroad house. Since then, we’ve invested perhaps another $30,000.

Not the first to put too much money in the place, we embellished the coved plaster ceilings with clever pink (dusty rose) paint, and made a four-bedroom house into a one-bedroom house.

Since the purchase date we’ve upgraded the heating and cooling system, added attic insulation, poured concrete pads inside and outside the garage, and even cleverly installed a bathtub and toilet in the utility room.

These days, we spend leisure time “on the deck” with our cats. The mostly-glass deck enclosure was accomplished using parts that came out of another structure. Not much cash outlay for one nice living area. The cats like it – and they even let us visit, mornings and evenings.

Repairmen – again

Shortly after we bought the little house, we had a guy come over and paint the exterior. I was tickled at the bright white trimmed in battleship grey.

My readers know I’m a leather tailor and a writer. You know I’m not a house painter. But even so, I knew the paint job wouldn’t last.

The guy half-heartedly scraped some of the old paint off. Then the guy stubbornly bypassed the primer coat, and slathered on pricey exterior latex semi-gloss.

Soon, the expensive new paint and trim began to bubble, peel and fall off. Testy over having paid big bucks for wasted labor and materials, I vowed: “I’m not having this house painted until all that old stuff falls off.”

Postponed maintenance

There’s an evil trade-off involved in delayed maintenance. We keep finding this out, over and over.

My petulant attitude about re-painting has just cost us mightily. But now the bite is behind us.

The wasps and yellow-jackets are homeless, and the attic is sealed from the weather again. When the money tree blossoms, perhaps in spring, new paint can go on over the new repairs. I see a bright future somewhere out there.

Meanwhile, we should be cozy for the winter.

Our neighborhood

It’s not like we live in a house in a row of ticky-tacky houses in a “development.” Nothing like that. Oh no. Not for us.

Rather, we live among an unconventional group of residents and merchants.

Our neighbors Dave and Greg are recluses, if not hermits. (As are we.) Our neighbor Oscar buys and sells used vehicles. One at a time. He keeps a “hairy Chihuahua” and drinks beer with his friends out on the sidewalk next to the street, where he can describe his latest for-sale truck to passers by.

Another of our neighbors we have only spotted three times, in fleeting appearances, since 1995. I think she qualifies as a recluse, as well. She remains nameless.

Oscar brings us fresh onions from the field. Dave watches our home from his second-story apartment, should we ever venture out on a vacation. Greg is learning leather craft from us, a little bit at a time.

The people at The Cigarette Store next to us are happy to take our UPS deliveries when we’re gone of a morning. Rufino operates an auto body shop across the street, and he’s quite willing to work on our old truck.

Harry and the liquor store staff keep an eye on the east side of our store building when our business is closed. Eric at Wolf Auto Worx is happy to assist with our old vehicles should need arise.

Neighbors. Truly friendly, helpful, thoughtful, generous neighbors. In a highly unconventional neighborhood.

It’s true that we have the specter of a farm chemical plant just a few yards away from home. There’s a giant truck stop and fuel station just a few steps the other way. Nobody would want to live next to the gas station or the storage yard for a landscaping company, but that’s where we live.

And then there’s the Union Pacific. We’re only a heartbeat away from the tracks. When we moved up to the little house, we had vowed ahead of time not to become annoyed with the railroad. We know there’s no point in being annoyed, yet it’s been a difficult vow to keep.

The crossing horn seems, over the years, to have become louder and longer. We can tell an angry engineer from a mellow one, just by the personality of the horn he blows. My, a lot of them are angry.

The up side of it is, we get to see things many folks don’t. The steam train to Frontier Days has a distinctive, nostalgic sound, and every year we can amble west to the tracks to see it up close and personal.

We’ve seen the Olympic Torch go by. There was a circus train once, complete with a giraffe’s long neck and head sticking up.

Early in the morning on Sept. 11, 2001, I happened to have awakened to answer the telephone.

Eerily, as my friend Mikey was giving me the bad news, I watched a train go by carrying dozens of brand-new military tanks and trucks. It was as if the Army was already sending war machinery . . .

The carnival

A few weeks ago, an entire carnival turned around in the cigarette store parking lot. I heard it coming so I stood up to look.

It was late at night, and the lead driver had obviously taken a wrong turn. As if in a parade, the entire truck-mounted entertainment business passed by in review.

There went the Ferris wheel, the merry-go-round, the Zipper and the Loop-de-Loop, right in front of us, for our inspection.

I said to Laura, snaking my arm around her curvaceous shoulders, “I like living here.”

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Word of the week: german. Ha ha ha. Even the word “german” comes from the Latin, “germanus,” or, having the same parents.

In English, it means having the same parents or the same grandparents on either the maternal or paternal side.

A german is a near relative. Family member. (In almost all languages of people indigenous to the Americas, words exist meaning “the people,” or “the family.” They are thought to be germans or even “cousin-germans.”)

So it is nothing to be ashamed of, to be german. Or proud of either, for that matter.

From this Latin root we also get “germination,” or impregnation of a seed, and “germane,” or related subject.

And the fellow who once owned our little house? In his case, German is most likely just the Spanish spelling of “Herman.” With a lot of germans around. Tee hee. Ain’t I funny.

Next week’s word: Fustigate

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