The Ghosts of Anderson Street

Mom and dad moved our family from New Jersey to Colorado in the spring of 1958. We lived in my uncle’s basement until dad found a job. A few months later, my parents bought a brand new tract home in Thornton, Colorado, a small suburb north of Denver.

Our house on Anderson Street was a thousand square feet, constructed with red bricks topped by shake shingles. It cost $10,000, a hefty sum in 1958. Back then Thornton was out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by open pastures where horses and cattle grazed, a few dairy farms, and occasional wheat fields. We could hear cows mooing and roosters crowing early in the morning.

Many of the young families in that close-knit neighborhood were veterans buying their first home. A few families came and went but a core group remained. They held parties in each other’s basements, neighborhood receptions to celebrate any number of events from weddings to births to anniversaries. Dad was always inventing fun games for us kids to play. He loved the hubbub and commotion, a gaggle of kids surrounding him, eager to hear his silly stories and ready to try out the skis he fashioned from curtain rods.

The years passed and the neighbors grew older. Many began to retire. Their kids married and moved away, returning with grandkids in tow. Two of mom and dad’s closest neighbors were in the houses just north of theirs. Ruth lived next door. She was a divorced woman who had successfully raised three children on her own. Next to Ruth were Joyce and Paul, a busy, active, fun-loving couple who moved to Colorado from Minnesota with their eight children.

Dad had the gift of gab and loved to flirt with the neighborhood ladies. Mom mostly rolled her eyes and would admonish him to let others get a word in edgewise. Along with Joyce and Ruth, my parents enjoyed spending afternoons and evenings on each other’s front porches, sharing a cold beer, telling stories of kids and grandkids and the good old days, waving at cars as they drove by, whether they knew the drivers or not.

Ruth was a quiet soul with a sweet giggle, a woman who enjoyed playing songs on her old upright piano. With windows open in summer, everyone knew when Ruth was enjoying a musical interlude. Joyce was vibrant and full of life, a tiny, affectionate woman with a hearty laugh and a beautiful smile, perpetually on the move.

Dad was devastated after mom died, having lost the love of his life. He remained close friends with Joyce and Ruth and they kept up their front porch visits for a while. But now they began to discuss their losses, problems with aging and accompanying aches and pains, and how much the neighborhood was changing right before their eyes.

About the same time dad began to struggle with complications from congestive heart failure, Joyce and Ruth were both diagnosed with cancer. They fought their personal battles for as long as they could. Ruth passed away on a Friday in March. Joyce left this world three days later, the following Monday. My brother Ted took dad to Ruth’s memorial service at the neighborhood mortuary on Wednesday. It was a warm, sunny day. Dad visited with neighbors and old friends and by all accounts enjoyed the time he spent with everyone, in spite of the solemn occasion.

Outside the funeral home, dad leaned on his cane while Ted went to get his vehicle and pick him up. Ted turned the key, then looked over to see dad had collapsed on the grass lawn in front of the mortuary. He said to himself “Oh, dad…” and he was gone in the blink of an eye.

The last few years of his life, dad would tell us that he was too bad for heaven and too good for hell, so he was just waiting around until God figured out what to do with him. There is no doubt in my mind what God decided.

Ted and I spent a few months fixing up and emptying our childhood home then sold it to complete strangers. The last day I set foot in our house was surreal. It had never been so empty, so quiet. I could almost hear mom’s power machines whirring away in the basement, dad’s cowboy shoot-'em-up movies playing loudly on the television, Raggs barking at the front gate.

Dave took pictures all around the house, every nook and cranny, every outside angle, every etching in the concrete retaining walls, driveways, and patios where long ago each of us had marked our presence with a name or a handprint.

As we pulled away from the curb one last time, in my mind’s eye I could see mom and dad and Joyce and Ruth, sitting on the front porch, each with a beer in hand, waving at our car as we drove down the street. The ghosts of Anderson Street never looked so happy.