A house on stilts

Every time I go out to visit my parents, I pass by the big yellow house that I grew up in. A new family lives there now and it's been over 10 years since I last walked through it's familiar rooms, but I will always consider it HOME. That's were all my childhood memories are.

The house was originally built by my great-great grandfather and was were my grandpa and my dad grew up.  When I stared kindergarten we were starting a major renovation.   We were replacing the small root cellar (which could only be accessed from the outside) with a real basement and having new siding put on.
In school one day the teacher had us draw a picture of our houses.  Since I knew we were going to change the outside from white to yellow, and because you can't see white crayon on white paper; I drew a yellow house.  The neighbor boy who was in class with me told me that wasn't a picture of my house.  My house was white, I needed to draw a white house.  "Yeah, well it's going to be yellow!" I told him.

Our house on stilts

Putting a basement under a preexisting house is a little more complicated than you can imagine.  It involves digging a large hole underneath the house and jacking the house up on stilts so a new foundation cam be built, all while we were we were living there.  Mom was pregnant with my sister and was terrified to leave the house because we had to "walk the plank" from the front door over the hole, which was about a 12 foot drop, to the other side.  One day I was taking my time getting out the door to meet the bus.  Mom didn't realize I wasn't all the way out and just saw the door had been left open.  She gave it a good slam from the inside.  It hit me in the butt with such force it send me flying over the hole and landing on the other side with a thud.  Luckily I was unscathed, other than a stinging backside. Mom was mortified when she realized what happened, but we laugh about it now.

Another time I was playing with the dog on the edge of the hole.  I was sitting right at the edge with my feet dangling.  The ground underneath me started to give way and I could feel myself starting to slip.  I grabbed the dog, hoping she would be able to pull me out, but she knew what was happening and was desperately trying to get away.  She struggled out of my grip just as the ground gave away and down I went.  I don't remember how I got out or how long I was down there, but I do remember having a black eye from the fall and having to explain how that happened.

With a month left of her pregnancy and the house still on stilts, Mom was getting nervous.  She was having nightmares about the house tipping over while we were inside and she swore she could feel it swaying when the wind blew.  That last month of her pregnancy she and I had to move out and live with Grandma until the basement wall were finished and the house could be put back on the new foundation.