Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Red Door

A nut brown ranch house
With a Red door
Ivy curving in the eaves
Marigolds, tulips and crocuses
In the garden
A huge fruitless (thank goodness)
Mulberry tree in the back yard
Perfect for climbing
(if you could reach that one lower branch)
There was a playhouse, too
(a shed taken over by a sisterly coup)

Cherished wall to wall
Avocado green carpet
(we were the last to get wall-to-wall)
Three bedrooms
In grade school, mine was heaven
Lavender, with bright pink furniture;
High school soothed with blue, 
Homework with the radio blasting
Reading with the radio blasting
(transistor mind you, so cool!)
Vinyl dinette, four seats perfect for
The four of us
And a yellow and green kitchen
That always smelled amazing
(Except on "liver" nights)

Safe inside, cozy-excepting sibling screeches
Outside a cold war
(“Better dead, than red”)
Whispered loud enough
For kids to hear
A Commie had snuck in
With a red door

I'm dating myself here (besides wall-to-wall carpeting, transistor radio), but back in sixties red was a pretty inflammatory color, usually meant your were a Communist sympathizer—but my mom just liked red. Of course it didn't help that my parents were liberal teachers, wearing bell bottoms and long hair, who'd infiltrated a conservative compound of neighbors. :-) But that's what fences and hedges are for...

Written for Poetic Bloomings #67, describe your home prompt, and dverse poets at dversepoets.com open link night



15 comments:

  1. ha, we have a red door...never really thought about the symbolism of it...gotta love those climbing trees as well...once my kids were school age i got out of the moving myself...i think it gives them stability of relationships...

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    1. Brian, I LOVE that you have a red door! And climbing trees--I still love them. Ironically, once I left home I moved a lot :-) Though, once we had kids--stayed in one place, it is nice to have one place be home base.

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  2. Loved your reminiscences. I remember when transistor radios were the cool new thing . They went the way of cassette players, heh? Today a lot of people use red for walls. I had not realized there was a particular reason there were not red walls in the 60's, but it makes sense. An interesting write

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    1. Thank you Mary! Glad you enjoyed the reminiscences. Thank you too for remembering transistor radios :-)

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  3. I love it...want to be there. I remember those times so well.

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    1. Hi Victoria! thank you for the visit and kind words. Those were fun times :-)

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  4. Not sure if my first comment "took." I love your descriptions and remember those times so clearly.

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  5. Haha... fancy being thought communist because you liked the colour red... LOL
    OMGoodness all those bright colours. Transistor radios ...gosh you took me back to my 60's youth here too ...loved it :)

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    1. So glad you got a laugh! That was the idea, so silly.
      Thank you for sharing in the memories with me :-)

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  6. Your comment on my post made me smile...thank you :)

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    1. Thank you Brenda, you make me smile all the time :-)

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  7. Sara, this is delightful, including your follow-up comment. :)

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    1. Hi De! Thank you for your warm compliment :-)

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  8. Okay, you just described MY younger life. LOVE the images here.

    But I liked liver nights!!! Sorry, I always did. :)

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    1. Jannie thank you so much for visiting! Your comment really made me laugh :-) Especially the comment about liver--my mom cooked it with onions so it was doubly stinky;-}

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Your words are wonderful! Thanks for popping in--I'll be over in a snap!