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Adventures in Life: The Apartment

Apartment #1 on bottom left, this was the front door.

I love going back in time. It’s not so hard to do when you live in your home town. Every few years I enjoy driving back through my old neighborhood and seeing how things have changed. The U-Totem convenience store is gone, along with the old washateria next to it. It’s now a bright, shiny new home store. The old GM dealership on the corner is a beauty supply mega-store. The old House of Pies is still there, and then there is the apartment.
The old House of Pies on Kirby Dr., a Houston institution
The apartment I have the most memories of- some of the first and most impressionable memories of my childhood- is on the borders of the artsy Montrose and the affluent River Oaks section of Houston. This is the apartment were I went to kindergarten; I still remember Mom taking pictures of me and my friend, Dallas, on the day I started first grade. Wow, I had a friend named Dallas! In the alley behind the apartment is where I learned to ride a bike…my first bike, a Christmas gift, as was my first Lego set.
 
This is where I learned to ride a bike and I played in that very puddle of water!
This was the apartment where I lost my first pet dog in a battle with a car on nearby Kirby Dr. This is the apartment of my first pet cats, who had kittens in the living room. This is the apartment where I first noticed airplanes in the sky, where I played with Yvette in the bushes under my window, where I admired all the Halloween candy from the mansions a few blocks away, where I played in puddles after a rain and where, one day, I got in trouble for throwing rocks at passing cars. I was four…I had no idea that was bad. But I learned!
Mom was young and struggling after her divorce to a man who turned out to be a selfish, egotistical piece of work. When her struggle became too much, she would walk me onto an airplane and send me to my grandparents. This is the reason I’m so close to my family, and Mom’s independence and ability to overcome her struggles was passed on to me.
For years I’ve driven by this apartment and watched as it got new paint jobs, new flowers in the yard, new curtains in the windows. Eventually, some of the neighboring apartments were torn down and up went shopping strips of furniture and children’s toy stores. Then today, some 44 years after I lived there, as I drove back in time, my old apartment itself has been turned into a store! It’s now an annex of the very store that overtook the neighboring buildings.
These door used to the our covered parking space.
I had planned to park and take some photos, afraid that one day soon, I’d drive by and it would be gone. But I guess that apartment had good bones, for there it was, just as I remembered it, except that the front yard was now paved for cars to park and people shopped for home goods in the place where all my oldest memories were formed. If they only knew! I went inside; something I’d longed to do for oh, so many years.
I walked into what used to be my living room. I could still see the Christmas tree and remember asking Mom how Santa was going to enter without our having a chimney. She told me he had magic keys and would walk in the front door, which was now blocked by a table showing off fancy plates and glassware. This was the room where I discovered Batman on TV, would first watch The Wizard of Oz and laugh at the antics of The Three Stooges before leaving for school (the Montessori school I attended is still there). This was the room my father got into an argument with a man my mother was dating. It made me cry, as it was the first time I realized that my father was flawed.
It was in this corner Mom had our Christmas tree.
As I walked to where my bedroom used to be, I could see where the window was, now blocked by a shelf full of stemware. The space between our apartment and the building next to it has been connected, so instead of the large bushes just outside are now candles and fancy candle holders. That window was home to the air conditioner, that beautiful machine. I loved the sound it made, lulling me to sleep and the cold breeze it provided on sultry Texas nights.
The window of my bedroom used to have a large bush.
Suddenly, I realized that I was standing in the place where, each night, I would lie my head and fall into dream land. The glasses on the shelves blurred through the tears forming in my eyes. I could still see the walls that were now gone, and the posters I had hanging over my bed; see the hole in the ceiling of the bathroom that fell in after the upstairs flooded. (I was able see the upstairs neighbor’s tub when that happened!)
You can see where the walls were. Upper right was the corner of my bedroom; left was the kitchen.
To my right was where my Mom’s room was. I could still see her teasing her hair in front of the mirror in the corner. Beyond her room was the small 1-car covered parking space. And behind me was where our kitchen used to be, the same kitchen Mom worked so hard on to paint…yellow and orange, if I remember correctly. She was such an artistic rebel!
Standing in Mom’s bedroom, the kitchen was on the left and my room was behind that column.
From the living room looking to the back of the apartment.
Now, it was all a huge showroom for Kuhl-Linscomb, a top-end design and lifestyle store. The hardwood floors were now stained concrete, but one can still see where the walls used to be. So many memories from 44 years ago came flooding back as I looked around. This is where I learned to tie my shoes. This is where I watched Carol Burnett. This is where Mom cut her wrist on broken glass and I remembered how badly I felt for her while she cried as we drove to the hospital. This is where I lived when I first went to Astroworld (gone), first went ice skating at the Galleria, first ate wonderful greasy burgers at the Purple Cow down the street from Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips (both gone). 
Where the bathroom used to be. You can see the hole in front of the column where the toilet was.
The thrill I had in riding my bike up the parking garage of the building around the block, the top from which I could see the Astrodome, was still with me. I loved that damned building with it’s magical light-up scoreboard with fireworks displays, eventually removed for more seats; yet another sad change from my childhood. Some of the quirky apartment homes in the neighborhood that I loved remain, but many have been torn down and converted to townhomes. How times have changed…how many 4 and 5 year-olds ride their bikes without supervision in the busy streets of Houston today? 
Of the quirky apartment buildings still stands a block away.
So if you find yourself in building 3 of K-L looking at wine glasses, this is where a very young Penguin would attempt to make himself appear hot at night so Mom would turn on my air conditioner, allowing me to sleep better. (To this day, I still sleep with a fan at night.) Take care of my apartment Kuhl-Linscomb. I want to come back and visit again. The old apartment has changed. But so have I…and Mom, too. Just like that home to a single mother struggling to make ends meet and raise her son, now a quaint shop of high-end home décor, we’ve come a long way and are doing much better for ourselves. And don’t worry about Santa, he’s gotten in just fine before!
Where this pickup is parked used to be a large bush under which I would play with Yvette and Dallas.
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Only Time Will Tell


Photo and story by Penguin Scott

It’s not so much that my past is haunting me as I have gone searching for it lately. It’s an easy task in that access to information on the Internet has made it so. But it’s a heavy task, as the past and how it changes, or my tendency to age, weighs down on the man I have become.

In 1994, I was living in Houston, TX, working a job I enjoyed in a downtown office building. Although I’d not really given much thought to the longevity of this particular job, I felt confident enough in buying a house.

The neighborhood in which I lived was only three miles from downtown. It was right off the Buffalo Bayou, along which I enjoyed taking walks. While not quite part of the area known as the Heights, it was an older neighborhood, fairly well kept up, and I loved living there. Some of the homes had been torn down and in their places were built sturdy, modern town homes, so the area definitely had a lot of life left in it.

What I loved about the house I found a few blocks from my apartment was that it was on a street that shared my last name, Scott. I thought, surely there’s not another Scott living here on Scott St., which gave it extra appeal.

What’s even better was how much I loved the house. My realtor let me in and I fell in love. The home had been updated, including a modern arched wall separating the kitchen and dining room. The detached garage had been converted into a studio with a bathroom and laundry area. The attic was now a loft, for either storage or even an office, except that access to it was up a wooden ladder and not stairs. The yards were lush; full of gardens, shrubs, trees and grass. And at $70,000, it was in my price range.

I wound up moving to Maryland to open a family business and never bought that house on Scott St. But I’ve thought about it often; what would my life have been like had I bought that house and never moved to Maryland? Or at least held on to it and rented it out after leaving Texas.

Last week I got on Google Maps, which has a feature where one can see a street view of almost any address. I’ve used it to see what the houses I grew up in now look like. I found the house I’d lived in as a small boy. The house in which I lived, on Steel St., was second from the corner. On the other side were another four or so houses before the next street. Those four houses were now gone! Currently in their place is an antique mall. But my house, and one on the corner, where Yvette lived, were still there; big, full trees in the yard, which, were I to find old photos, I’m sure were only as big as me when I was in residence.

It was in the bushes between my house and Yvette’s, where she and I would play. And by play, I mean do things little kids are not supposed to do, like lighting matches and figuring out that her physiology and mine were quite different. We were only six. It’s also from these bushes that I first started to watch airplanes flying overhead, noticing the orange bellies of the Southwest 737s approaching Hobby Airport to our south. Quite a few really fond memories still reside there for me.

Steel St. wasn’t too far from Scott St., so after a quiet celebration that my old abode was still standing, I moved the map in search of the house that was almost mine on Scott.

Gone! My house was gone and in its place was one of those monstrosities; a huge modern duplex with garages on the ground floor and living areas on the top two. What’s worse is knowing that they probably sold the house for three times what I would have bought it for. And had I bought it, that could be my profit, not someone else’s.

After letting this settle in for a bit, I thought about the Houstonian Hotel a few miles away. I once worked there with the Secret Service. It was the early ‘90s and George H. W. Bush was president. As such, he didn’t have a home, and used the Houstonian as his official residence. So when he wanted to escape to Texas, this is where he’d come. And in my role as a security officer, I briefed the White House staff and Secret Service special detail agents about the Houstonian grounds. Having all the keys, I was also the one to grant agents and the Bush’s access to closed areas of the grounds after hours, such as the huge fitness center. This is the manner in which I was able to meet George and Barbara, and their framed autographs are now some of my more favorite personal effects.

I was astonished to find the changes made to the hotel and grounds. First thing that I noticed were the old homes along the entrance. They had been leveled in favor of a small office building. And much of the land the property once sat on was given up for homes, now only a stones throw from the hotel. When I worked there, you’d have thought it located in the middle of no where. Trees were all you could see in any direction, save the towering condo building near the entrance to the property. Now there’s a new pool, no wait, two! The old Phoenix Spa was redone and renamed and the hotel lobby is new and rich, for only the most sophisticated of tastes. I guess when they gave up on the grounds they had to enhance the interior.

Another thing the Internet is good for is searching for old friends. There are still a few who I’d love to find, like my best friend in third grade, Robert Pearson. He’s impossible to find, as there seem to be 18 million Robert Pearsons, and I have no idea where he’s settled down.

Thinking that maybe he’d search for me, I created a Facebook account. It started off great, as soon, many old friends from my days in Houston and from high school in Dallas were finding me. I even got friended by an ex girlfriend, who at one time seemed to have me in her sights for matrimony. I took a pass and she landed on some other guy and now has a kid, to boot!

But soon, my current friends started finding me and before I knew it I had nearly 200 friends on Facebook. And it wasn’t just a collection of people, but each and every one was someone that I knew. And some were blood family! And all, it seemed, felt it necessary to comment and to invite me to causes and events. I’d log on and there would be page after page of things to read or to catch up on. Paul is waiting for his flight at the airport. Clara is missing her boyfriend, who’s out of town. Matt just had Chinese food. Emily sent me a flower and wants me to send one back. Joe sent me an invite to the Yuma alien wars game.

So I abandoned Facebook as I simply could not handle knowing all the minutia of things going on with all the people I was connected with on the site. I still keep my profile up, as I do still hear from old friends. And from time to time I still search on it for people I want to reconnect with.

So it is, with my recent quest to relive the past that I got on again and started to search. Besides Robert, there’s an old friend from New Jersey who I’ve wondered about. We used to be like brothers, as good of friends as they ever made. We were well aligned philosophically, both loved the Star Wars movies, had the same family business and became old friends the moment we met while vacationing in the Bahamas.

In 2000, when I changed jobs and moved to California, his communications with me ceased; what I called the great silence. After a few years, the great silence ended and we started talking again, picking up like nothing happened. But then the silence returned, and before you know it, it’s been 6 years since I’ve heard from him.

I typed his name on the Facebook search, and there he was, smiling back at me with his wife and child. Should I be so bold as to send him a note? Should he send me a friend request back? Shall we pick up where we left off? Can I handle more reminders of the years that pass and my slow crawl on the messy floor of aging as my once single friend is now a family?

The note was sent and his friendship request was received, making Vince Facebook friend number 202. As for the rest, only time will tell. And as things around me continue to change in an attempt to constantly remind me that I am getting older, I will continue refusing to act my age!