I've often wondered what it takes to achieve immortality. For instance this weekend we're hearing about the death of Walter Cronkite. I remember Walter Cronkite doing the evening news just as I remember Johnny Carson hosting The Tonight Show, but how many other Americans do? And as with Johnny Carson, as the years pass can we expect the number who remember to become less and less, until Cronkite becomes just a name on a plaque at the Broadcasting Hall of Fame? Maybe so.
However last weekend I think I found part of the key to immortality: have a house near a busy road that can be converted into a neat little eatery.
My grandmother got Alzheimer's and was moved out of the house above back in the late 1980's. At the time the neighborhood had become pretty seedy. My uncle bought and resold the house, and these days it's a nice little restaurant called
The Big Table, and the rest of the neighborhood looks much more up-and-coming, too.
Dad and I went there last week, and it's amazing: the house my grandparents moved into in 1946 is still filled with life and vitality. People are still eating at my grandmother's house!
Click to enlarge
In the above pic you see my grandma's bedroom to the left is the kitchen. Where the cash register is is where her own Big Table was. The kitchen is now used just for doing dishes, it looks like. The living room area is now the eating area, as is...
My Mom's bedroom. It's crazy, there dad and I were eating dinner in Mom's room! More and bigger windows have been put in. I noticed one of the tables in there looked like it was actually a sewing machine table, and I think that may have been my grandmother's sewing machine table that got left behind.
They've changed some things about the front porch, and the back porch is now built-in for more space (I used to envision putting on rock festivals on that porch because she had a pretty big backyard). A wall has been taken out inside the house between the living room and my Mom's room, the bathroom is different, but it's still very recognizable to me. I had flashbacks to being 15 just pulling in the driveway.
So if you're up in Chattanooga, go eat at my grandmother's house, a.k.a. The Big Table. The food is still pretty good.
I bet Grandma would appprove, too. :)
That house also always comes to mind when I hear people say they can't make ends meet while they're SUV has a DVD system, they have a Blu-Ray home theater with digital cable, TiVO, and a 58" TV and even their 10-year-old has an iPhone. That house was basically a two bedroom, one bath apartment, although originally there was no bath, just an outhouse. It also had no closets and no kitchen cabinets until my mom had some put in when she got her first job after college in the `60's.
But think about that - if you have nothing but a cupboard, you're not going to buy a lot of fancy dishes and appliances you'll never use, or by a bulk load of peanut butter at Sam's Club that you'll have nowhere to store. When you buy a house with eight rooms, what does that provoke you to do but buy furniture you'll never sit on to fill rooms you'll rarely visit? Walk-in closets say, "Go buy clothes to fill this space." My grandmother kept the wardrobe she had for years, and it had just enough room for a week's worth of clothes and some linens. No splurging on clothes you weren't going to actually wear.
Mom always said that they ate fried chicken on Sunday, but most of the week they ate beans, cornbread, vegetables and mashed potatoes because that's all they could afford. You got one Coca-cola a week as a treat on Saturday.
They also had no car and took the bus everywhere.
If everyone went back to living like that, could we still make ends meet? We might have a surplus!
But I would go stir-crazy in there. It was very small.
I really am enjoying your blog. I have been reading for a few months now, and really enjoy your trips down memory lane. Thanks for the peak.
Doc