Practical Math

Imagine my surprise when I woke up one day to find my math teacher building a closet in my bedroom! Yikes!! When I was growing up our house was constantly being remodeled, it seemed. At the time, the large room in the basement under the front room was being finished. This was the room my 2 sisters and I slept in temporarily. My 8th grade math teacher was there along with other workers working on my closet. The teachers needed to work part-time jobs in the summertime.

Our house was originally a 4 room house with a full basement including a garage under the house. There was one bedroom, a "front room", a kitchen, a bath and a utility room. I guess that makes 5! In my dreams, the utility room became a jungle. At some point, my parents built on a new front room next to the old kitchen and a little later, I think, a new kitchen. The old kitchen and front room became bedrooms. The utility room became a dining room.

My most unpleasant memory was of having to carry dirt out of the basement by the bucketfuls. My dad dug out the room under the new front room by hand and us girls had that "wonderful" task. Boy, did I hate that! Somehow they poured cement in to make walls and finished that room for us girls to use. When the kitchen was made, I think they dug the basement out first. My memory is a little faulty on that point. In the end, the room under the new kitchen became my room. I got to choose the color for the walls. They were lavender. I still like purple.

After I left they added on another large room where my mother took care of daycare children. Our backyard that once was large gradually became smaller and smaller. The original house use to have white shingles.

As most families, I have a lot of memories of life in that house. A lot of good memories of a loving mother and her care of the family and some not so good memories but I will never forget waking up to find my math teacher working in my room using his math skills.