Home--in the heart, and in the house (My Sacred Life, Sunday)

Our house is modest, located in a neighborhood in southeast Denver which was built almost 50 years ago. Our surroundings have not been subject to the kind of "scrape off" activity we see in the areas more highly valued. In one area I drove through the other day, the houses are even smaller and older than ours, yet in one block I saw four lots where there was a McMansion either already in place or about to be built (in other words, the modest little 1000-sq-ft house was already gone). It seems silly to me to put a 2500-sq-ft house on a lot designed to host a much smaller house, but it's not up to me, and I'm letting go of the entire topic!

Today, I am choosing to express my gratitude for my house, my home, the abode where Julia and I create our lives every day.

Julia made two really good decisions and improvements to the house: it was at her insistence that we added the curved walk you can see which allows a passenger to exit from a vehicle in our one-car-wide driveway and have a sidewalk to traverse which leads to the front porch. She also instigated the planting of the now-gorgeous evergreen which is on the left side of this photo, and does just what she wanted it to grow up and do: hide our huge trash receptacle, which is behind the tree.

The story of how we got the house is a fun one to tell. Our realtor knew we would be interested, as the house is in the perfect location for us. At the time, we were living in an apartment only a couple of miles away, so we drove over to see the house as soon as she let us know about it. It was early evening on a late summer day.

As we sat in the car in front of the house, we were both excited. We called the realtor back, and she explained that she would not be able to show us the house until the next morning. We were like little kids, anticipating Christmas morning. We knew it was the house for us.

At 9 am the following day, we got our tour.

The house was not in great shape, and the sales person had made a bad call in leaving the old shag carpet instead of ripping it out before showing the house. Yuck. The house was no longer occupied, so the large expanse of really bad carpet did nothing to enhance the experience of any prospective buyer.

Then, I went down to the unfinished basement. As I looked at a pile of stuff in the far corner, a jolt of electricity shot up my spine: I saw, at the bottom of the pile, a portion of an old cardboard show band stand jutting out. in an instant, I recognized it, even seeing only a small part of it.

It was a cardboard front which would be in place before each member of a band, both calling out the name of the band and shielding the audience from seeing the music stand behind it. And, in this case, it was for the Rolly Roberts Jazz Band, a well-known group in the 1950's and 1960's around Denver. The leader of the band was my high-school band director. I played trumpet, as did Rolly. I was his assistant my senior year.

I live in the house that Rolly and his wife, Garnie, called home from the day the house was completed in 1959 until she, by then his widow, moved into an assisted-care facility in 1999. In our house today is a wonderful pair of portrait photos, shown here, of Rolly and Garnie. I'm guessing they were taken about 1970 or so, and we are very grateful to their only child, Tim, for allowing us to keep these pictures.

In 1999 when we bought the house, Denver was in the midst of a rapidly rising home market, so we knew we needed to act quickly. We saw the house in the morning, and we had an offer on the table at well above asking price that afternoon.

I made a big issue of the fact that the house was owned by my band director's widow as we were writing up our offer, and I insisted that our realtor inform the selling agent of this fact. She did, and the selling agent conferred with Tim, and they agreed to sell the house to us. There was a competing offer which matched ours, but the fact that I had been a student of Rolly's clinched it for us.

Thanks again, Tim!

It is often the case that I think of Rolly. He was such a transparent person. You never wondered where you stood with him. He literally radiated the essence of 'HAPPY' when he smiled, and it was as if a summer thunderstorm had rolled in when he was not happy with you. His bushy eyebrows got so low you couldn't see his eyes hardly at all. Most of all, he lived to share his love of music. I'm very lucky to have been one of his last students. He retired from teaching soon after I graduated, and he passed away in the 1980's.

So, this Sacred Life Sunday is devoted to my home, and to the powerful influence of Roland S. Roberts, a man I last saw more than 35 years ago. Rolly, thanks for the passion you brought to class every day, and for the way you modeled for me how to love what you did for a living. I don't make a living in music, but I love what I do.