That's not the greatest picture of the house we owned in Fort Worth, Texas, but it's a picture I took one night when I took the trash out. It was a lovely house. It is the best place I ever lived. I miss it a great deal.
If you've been keeping up with this series, you'll know there's a common occurrence in home buying: my wife finds a place, I don't like it, she sees something in the place, she fixes it up to make it magic. This is certainly true for the house on Bal Lake Drive. It was a weird, claustrophobic home whose charm eluded me. When my wife was done with it, it was a magnificent place to live.
When we moved in, in late 2016, we had a menagerie of four cats & four dogs. When we left, in May of 2019, we were down to three of each. My sweet loves Ringo & Beatrice died in that house - we had a doctor come to end their suffering, not all at once, when it was their time. I would have stayed there for the rest of my life just in honor of them, they were so amazing & great. But the house was in Fort Worth, in Texas, in a place where I & my wife had no future.
We had amazing neighbors, don't get me wrong. We lived in a lovely subdivision. We were comfortable. But we had no future.
It occurred to me when thinking about this today, that even though I was able to do radio while living there - I had a show on KNON - I never did Self Help Radio live while I lived in this house. Imagine! I recorded a show to be aired on WLXU in Lexington for a time, & after that did the show as a podcast. I sat in that house, which I loved, & recorded so many fake interviews, & put together so many shows, & they were never live. Three years of Self Help Radio not live.
Some friends in Kentucky couldn't believe we'd leave the house we had there. They're still in Kentucky, they don't seem to share my apprehension of that state. The house in Kentucky on Southbend was sublime but it was too big for us. The house on Bal Lake was perfect. Okay, the yard might have been too big (though not for Pauline, who loved it). The pecan trees were a pain in the ass (though the dogs did love crunching all the nuts that fell). & Texas is just way too hot for too many months of the year. & let's not forget the fucking Trump & Ted Cruz signs we had to endure.
But the house itself. Unbelievably perfect for us. I can't believe I'll never step foot in it. We were barely there for what, two & a half years? Yet it's imprinted on my DNA. I think there's a part of me that still moves around it like a spirit. I can see outside its every window. I know every step to take, I can find anything - anything - you need me to find in that place. I cooked meals, I fed animals, I watched television & films, I danced, I drank too much, I cleaned up, I made a mess, I turned all the lights off at night in that house.
It seems nice folks bought it. They for some reason painted the brick exterior white. Ah well.
One last thing. There was a great oak in the front yard. A gorgeous thing. When workers were in the neighborhood, they had lunch under that tree. I sometimes watched them. & I understood.
Here's a picture from Google Maps. This is from 2018. I think we scandalized some of our retired elderly conservative neighbors with our Beto sign:
To jump ahead - the place I live in now in Portland is my second-favorite place I've lived. I'll get to why it's second in a couple of weeks. But let me just say, gosh. That was a great house. I loved that place. I really did.
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