Happy Days in Pennsylvania

Each morning I wake up to music coming from the radio on the dresser in my bedroom. I keep it tuned to WRR, Dallas’ classical music station.

This morning, as I took my sweater out of the closet, ready to go down to breakfast, I heard the soft voice of the woman announcer say the next selection would be a Hayden composition played by pianist Andre Watts.

That brought a flood of memories of one of the happiest times in my life.

In 1970 my husband was transferred to the home office of Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Philadelphia, and we bought a wonderful old house in Drexel Hill. Our house had ten rooms; the Ritters, across the street, had fifteen. I loved our three-story stone and stucco house, built in 1910. It looked grand and formal, with Doric columns on each side of the fan-lighted front door, but our family had many good times there.

Like all the other houses on Forest Avenue there were big trees in front; in the fall golden leaves fell a foot deep completely covering the street like a down comforter. In the spring azaleas made the big stone houses look like Kincaid paintings.

At our house we stepped into a front hall with a fake Oriental rug, which became a dining room rug when we moved to the much smaller house in Woodridge, Illinois. In Pennsylvania an open stairway went all the way up to the third floor. From the second floor seven-year-old David tied a rock to a string and dropped notes down to me. The day after Thanksgiving he sent down, “What’s for dinner?” I scribbled a reply, “Turkey.” David pulled the paper up and sent down another, “Dispicable.” In our family we never were good at spelling.

Doric columns framed the doorway to the living room. The League of Women Voters came to our house for its annual meeting. I counted 54 women sitting on chairs in my living room. All the chairs they sat on were mine. I did not know I had so many chairs.

The living room fireplace was backed by another fireplace in the sunroom. We invited the neighbor teenagers to play monopoly on the old round oak table, which was our dining room table in other homes. Martha’s piano was also in the sunroom. Every afternoon I cooked dinner to the happy sound of her practicing. Martha enjoyed playing the piano, and I could hear that happiness in the way her fingers danced across the keys.

Most nights we ate dinner at the mahogany table in the formal dining room, using sterling silver and Lennox china on a daily basis for the only time in our 27-year marriage. We seldom sat in the formal living room; after supper we watched television in one of the second floor bedrooms which we converted into a cozy sitting room.

The other three bedrooms on the second floor were David’s room, the master bedroom, and a little room off the master where Wally could retreat to his big desk and his stamp collection. On the third floor were two big bedrooms for our teenagers, Karl and Martha. There was room for everyone in that house, room for parties, room for family to be together, and rooms for each of us to have private escapes.

What does this have to do with Andre Watts? In 1970 he was just beginning as a concert pianist – not as famous as Van Clyburn, but a career that took him all over the World. Clare Ritter, who lived across the street and who had boys Karl’s age, invited my kids and me to go with them hear Watts as featured soloist with the Philadelphia Symphony at a summer concert at the outdoor amphitheater in Robin Hood Dell. It was a beautiful program, and Watts was a terrific pianist. The only problem: we were caught in a downpour. We put up umbrellas, but it rained so hard the deluge drowned out the music. We sloshed through mud back to the car.

Now I live in Texas in a four-room apartment. Today is cold and damp. I hate these cold, gray January days. I remember Philadelphia, where it seemed to rain every day. I would sit in that big house listening to the rain and think, “That’s what makes the trees grow so tall.”

Even with the constant rain, life was good in Pennsylvania. And my life is not so bad now. Springtime and sunshine will come again.