The House That Tex Built (part 1)

Back in 1954, Grampy built a small house in the Mojave Desert—isolated as all get-out, smack dab in the middle of nowhere. This was his dream home and his dream location. Never mind that he had a city-bred wife who hated the country and three school age hooligan boys who would find more mischief in the sandy hills of the Antelope Valley than their mother could ever have imagined.

Bernie and Tex in the Knotty Pine living room 1954

He built it with love, entirely by hand and all by himself. It was a project he could be proud of. Bernie (his wife) was just thankful and relieved that he included an indoor outhouse. There were two small bedrooms, a kitchen so miniscule you could spread out your arms and touch two walls, a dining room, one serviceable bathroom and a nice sized living room with a large wet-bar, rock fireplace and knotty pine paneling all around. Tex finished the outside of the tiny house with pink paint and white gingerbread trim. He put up astronaut wallpaper in the bedroom the three boys shared and built-in cabinets in the master bedroom. The kitchen was tastefully finished with green and pink linoleum tiles. But the knotty pine living room was Tex's piece de resistance with the large wood bar, rustic rock fireplace and hammered steel switchplates and wall decorations he made himself during his lunch hours at the sheet metal plant he worked at. It was truly a house of the 50's and one I'd proudly pin to my Pinterest boards.

Hand made switchplates are throughout the house

The family lived there for 9 years...a goodly amount of time for those three boys to wreak havoc on the desert wildlife, continually frighten their mother with countless snakes and spiders, shoot a bushel of crows with their BB guns and long enough for Bernie to crack (I'm talking certifiable nervous breakdown), threaten D-I-V-O-R-C-E and insist they move back into town. So Tex reluctantly sold the gingerbread house, packed up all their belongings, and moved the whole kit and kaboodle back into the city.

But oh, those years in the desert were the halcyon days of Grampy's life. During that time, he built up a good-sized chicken ranch and managed to compile so much salvage lumber he could easily have built another two houses with it. He was in his element there, with no noisy and nosy neighbors to interfere, and only his own honery brood to fuss and holler at —which he did at the top of his lungs.

Tex always pined for that little house in the desert and was never the same after they left. He always lived in some house in some town, with neighbors he hated, the rest of his days and even now. And being 88 years old, he's not likely going to be moving to an isolated spot in the middle of nowhere again.

And that little house? I like to think it always pined for Tex as well. None of the owners over the ensuing years could have loved it and cared for it the way he did. We know they didn't because, as adults, Mike and I would drive down that dusty road once in a blue moon to take a look at it. It gently and steadily fell into a state of disrepair. Oh that sad little, once happy house. But time marches on and houses and humans alike get old and tired. Their roofs get windblown, joints get creaky, and their floors fall in. 

But sometimes I sit and listen to Grampy as he recounts his time in the 50's - building and living in that little house in the desert. He seems almost happy, and surprisingly young again. Well maybe that's the most we can expect in our old age—memories and smiles, and someone to share them with.