Grandma and Grandpa's House

My grandparents left Washington state in 1949 and moved as far as their money would take them: Alaska. Anchorage was in its infancy and was little more than a tent city; they lived in a one-room log house until Grandpa, a self-employed contractor, could build them the house which the city eventually grew up around, the same house that they live in today.

In the basement is a two-room apartment where my parents lived while they were home between college semesters. One summer my mother gave birth and that little basement became my first home. Later Grandpa built a four-plex on a third of the property for retirement income and it was successful enough that he built another apartment building with six units on the remaining third next to his immaculately organized wood shop.

When my parents were ready to settle permanently in Anchorage they lived in one of those apartments while they saved money for a house and when Andrew and I came back to Anchorage ten years ago we lived in the same apartment while we too saved for a home. Two of my children were born while we lived there.

I celebrated my fifth birthday in Grandma's garage with a long folding table and all the relatives gathered around a drooping teddy bear cake. While running in new patent leather shoes I tripped on the pebbled walkway that ran between the her house and our apartment and cut my eyebrow--my first time getting stitches. I started kindergarten during that time and each day made the two-block trek of which the highlights were feeding the neighbor's pet, Star the Reindeer, a carrot on the way to school and then visiting Grandma on the way home.

Every year at Christmas my family and my uncle's family gathered at Grandma's house for Christmas dinner and a chance to play with the cousins. When I was in high school I had to write an entrance essay and I wrote about my Grandmother's house and how she mopped her garage floor and had a fabulous Button Box, an ancient hand-cranked ringer washing machine and plastic chickens and ducks she put out in her garden every year.

But this year will be different because Grandma and Grandpa have decided that they can't take care of the apartments any more, the taxes on the place are killing them and they won't raise rents enough to cover the rising costs. Grandpa can't take care of the maintenance issues like he used to and can get dizzy when he stands for too long. They've decided that it's time to move.

Because the property is one big piece of land they can't sell the apartments separate from the house. So the whole lot is on the market and they have bought a condo in a senior retirement community. One of the brand new complexes going up around town with a swimming pool, an elevator, a garage, even a woodshop for Grandpa to putter around in. It's very safe and has all the amenities a octogenarian couple could want.

I'm glad they've found someplace comfortable that fits their needs, where they can relax from the stress of maintaining apartments, where Grandma won't break her hip while trying to shovel her front steps, but to leave the home they've known for fifty years where they've raised their three children and where at least five of their fourteen grandchildren have lived is an upheaval that hurts to watch.

Grandpa will have a shop but it won't be his shop, with his screws organized and labeled in baby food jars on the peg board and his own jar of candy by his own radio playing horrible country western music. That really twangy, Patsy Cline variety.

They're trying now to sort through fifty years of treasures, trying to figure out how to live with less--for Grandma this means giving up her empty 1976 Mason jars that she's sure must be worth too much to just give away to charity. I've taken as many as I can but I just don't do as much canning as she did.

The darkest secret is that when the land sells, and if not this time then the next time around, the value of such a prime piece of downtown property will be too much for a developer to resist and the house will be demolished--and possibly the other buildings too--to make room for the fancy town homes that are mushrooming around town. Someone will knock down a $60,000 house and replace it rows of condos that will sell for $600,000 apiece. I don't think I want to be here to see that. I hope it doesn't happen in Grandma and Grandpa's remaining time.

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