end of an era

I am now officially old.

Before there were seat belt laws and an operable AC (other than a rear window rolled part way down–manually of course), I remember riding around town in one of a fleet of used cars owned and driven by my dad. As we traversed the east bench of Salt Lake City, he would usually point out a vacant street corner or new office building and tell me about what used to be standing in that location when he was growing up: his school, his ball field, his church. I was usually interested in his stories of yesteryear, but most likely dismissed their significance as quickly as we would turn the corner–equating change to progress.

Driving around Salt Lake recently, I waxed nostalgic as I realized that many of my childhood landmarks are also no longer standing. My elementary school has closed. The junior high is being torn down and replaced. My high school is unrecognizable in both architecture and ethnicity. Ice cream parlors, shoe stores and hamburger joints are now offices, and vice versa. The parking lot turned water park is now a parking lot again. The department stores I remember waiting and waiting and waiting in for my mother and sisters to finish shopping, are now trendy eating places equipped with WiFi. Sugar House, where I used to get on the bus, and downtown where I used to get off the bus, are in various stages of demolition and construction.

I am not necessarily condemning change. Personally I have renovated two aging structures, themselves once new, hoping to extend their life span and usefulness as I saw it. But, sooner than I had hoped, they too were claimed by time and the jaws of a bulldozer or swinging fists of a wrecking ball.

Today I can add one more address into the "change" column: my family home. Built by my grandfather Francis, who also helped to subdivide the neighborhood, 2264 South 2000 East has been the Platt homestead since its construction in 1941. My father purchased the house in 1963, and has been building on it ever since. Today my parents signed a contract to sell "fort Platt" to a new family, who I am confident, have ideas of their own for the future of the property.

After posting an "After Christmas Sale" on Craig's List, an offer was accepted on what we all agreed was an appropriate day: Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We reasoned that the visionary buyers could say "I have a dream" and the weary sellers could exclaim "free at last, free at last." We will be packing up the remaining miscellaneous items and memories from behind the block wall on Saturday, February 2, and will say one last goodbye. The end of an era.

Goodbye game room: orange shag carpet, faux wood paneling, a popcorn ceiling and harsh florescent lighting were never so cherished.

Goodbye swimming pool, recently unfloored: location of flips and splashes, merit badges, a makeshift water bed, mom's broken leg, indoor trampoline, and in its later years everyone's storage shed.

Goodbye heating vents: congregating places, especially under the piano, on cold mornings before school.

Goodbye bathrooms, toilets behind random doors: all twelve of them.

Goodbye unique walls: your textures helped us navigate our way through the darkness late at night. Our knuckles are still trying to recover from the extreme-textured living room, and our eyes from the green shag crawling up the walls in the basement.

Goodbye steep staircases, eight at last count: falling down you always left an impression. No hard feelings, but the "fireworks stairs" were always my favorite.

Goodbye kitchen of your choice: a different one for each meal of the day...not only breakfast, lunch and dinner, but also brunch, after school and midnight snacks.

Goodbye secret hiding places: the tunnel under mom and dad's bed, the trapdoor stairs and the conservatory loft. The axe murderer never stood a chance.

Goodbye doors: each of your distinctive squeaks and creaks told a story. Your age, origin, shape, working condition, and building material punctuated the composition. James Bond and the ward librarian would feel equally at home.

Goodbye trees: apricot, peach, pear, plum, cherry, apple, hawthorne, pussywillow, helicopter/mustache and soaring evergreens. The weeping willow in the backyard whose selfless removal made the swimming pool possible, and the happy maple in the front that the whole neighborhood thought was perfect for climbing.

Goodbye underground wheat storage tank: another place to climb, but only as a chore. We always knew you would be there for us in an emergency.

Goodbye laundry chute: equal parts puppet theater and elevator shaft.

Goodbye bedrooms: at one time or another I have claimed each one as my own, as have a hundred others.

Goodbye. Goodbye from all of us.