You Never Can Tell

In 1983, we moved to Chestnut Street. I was anxious to get settled, because I was pregnant. My mom and step-father came to West Virginia to help us pick out a house. Silly me, I seem to like old houses. We looked around, and the only house we liked in our price range was an old house built in 1923. I liked the red oak trim on the inside of the house. It had been re-modeled, but not in the best way.

Still, as I had been living in the Washington DC metro area for years in a progressively long line of crappy apartments, I was happy to be back home in West Virginia, and in a house again. I was all starry-eyed at "fixing it up". oh yeah, the old fixer-upper syndrome.

So one day in 1985, we get news the river is flooding. We live on the river that flows North - Tygart's Valley River, and I mean it's right out back of my house. I decide to take the kids and go to Aunt Peg's - had to go to work the next day, and the kids in school, and if the creek went up, I wouldn't be able to get out. Left my sister in the house - didn't move a damn thing.

About 2 am in the morning, here comes my sister, saying that the whole basement filled up with water, and then the first floor started flooding, and she had to be rescued in a boat. The biggest flood ever came that night. We had no idea. The house was trapped between the river and the creek that was more like a river.

So it went up 4 1/2 feet on the first floor, sat in flood water for four days, and we couldn't go home. The first day we were able to get there, we went in the front door and we both started crying, as there wasn't a thing that wasn't ruined. All my antique furniture, which had been my grandmothers, all our books, electronics, the whole kitchen turned topsy turvy, a 300 pound table my father made - it was all ruined.

I won't go into what we had to do, but we got it cleaned up, the government offered us a small loan at 4% interest so we could fix it up. Don't get me started on FEMA or the silly way they run their program, will ya? No wonder people bad mouth the goverment.

Over the next few years, we went through more floods, had the sense to move furniture upstairs, but still lost carpet, flooring, kitchen, blah blah. I got damn sick and tired of it. Finally, Aunt Peg went to a nursing home, and we got the job of house sitting for our cousin. We moved, and rented out the house to a bunch of no-good tenants, who mistreated the house, grew pot in the attic and left their mess, blah blah. Finally, my daughter and her boyfriend moved up there.

Now, over the years, my sister has been bugging me about moving back up there. I hate that house. I hate the crap I've had to go through to clean it, maintain it, put up with trashy nasty neighbors, people that drive their cars so fast, they are going to kill a child one day, and have killed a long line of cats - just because they hate cats - on our road. The mere thought of moving there has sent me into a deep depression, and a frenzied attack on the refrigerator.

I knew the day would be coming soon where I would have to go back. My cousin (don't get me started) was retiring and coming back to her house, and wanted us to live with her. I knew, I knew.... it wasn't going to work out. I like Pink Floyd, she's a preacher. Get my drift?

So here I am - a year later - living with her and she is making my life a living hell. Her dogs are the dogs from Hades - you can't imagine how annoying they are. You have no idea what it's like to live with two monstrous canines who bark 24/7, jump on everyone, get into trash, leave trash all over the yard, use the carport for a potty, use the house for a potty, eat the cat poop out of the box (only in the winter do we have a box in the basement). It's more than I can stand. She sits passive-aggressively in her chair and smiles at their behavior..... Cesar - where are U?

So, you can see, I have to go home. When my mother died, she left us her condo in Fort Myers, Florida. We got a very very reduced price on it, but it's enough to go back up to the house and start remodeling AGAIN. I bought 80 sheets of dry wall people. I'm on a mission to get the hell out of here. The kitchen is done. The living room and dining room are almost ready for carpet, new windows are replacing some of the worst, and Sally is making curtains. so it's looking like yeah, yeah, maybe I can move there. Maybe.

One thing that has been worrying me for 20 years or so is the roof. We've had a long line of incredibly stupid people working on it. It's a 12 pitch roof, which is a roofer's nightmare. No one will touch it, and I don't blame them. Clifford Poe was a friend of my brother (who passed away). He is a roofer, and came down to help us, just because of Jeffrey. Today, he finished his work and called. He says to my sister - did you know that whole roof is made out of chestnut? That it's probably never gonna go bad, they just don't make them like that anymore. The house is built on cut rock, and is never going to go off the foundation.

So - I guess we made a good choice after all. It has good bones. That's the most important thing.