There is a black and gold sign in the shape of a house about two miles from where I live that bothers me. Every time we pass it, I want to get out, pull it up and throw it away.
It simply says “Home for sale.”
I want to tell everyone you can’t buy a home, only a house.
I agree with the poet Edgar A. Guest in his poem, “It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home”.
Born in 1881 and living to 1951, this poet wrote his poetry of his love and feelings of the common man. The following excerpts express his thoughts on building a “home”.
“It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home
A heap o’ sun and shadder, an’ ye sometimes have t’ roam
Afore ye really ‘preciate the things ye lef behind,
an’ hunger fer um somehow,
with ‘em allus on yer mind.
It don’t make any diference how rich ye get t’ be, Home ain’t a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute
Afore it’s home there’s got t’ be a heap o’ livin’ in it.
Ye’ve got t’ love each brick and stone from cellar up t’ dome.
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home.”
When I read these simple words it reminds me of our going from a house to a home.
When newly-wed teenagers, we required help to set up a very small house to live in until Hubby left to give Uncle Sam two years of his life. During his tenure with the Army, which took him to Germany, I lived with my parents. Upon his return, we went back to our small house.
We knew we wanted to start a family so we would need a larger house. Daddy, who was a carpenter, and Hubby set in to building a larger house. When the house was almost complete, we brought our first child home to add to our family.
Hubby went furniture shopping to add to our stove, refrigerator and bed. which made up the furnishings we were living with. With the help of the Hulls at Hull Furniture, he acquired dining room, bedroom and living room furniture. and we were able to move into what was becoming our “home” . There were now three of us and lots of love filled that simple house so now we could say, “This is our home”. Two more children joined us through the years and even more love was now filling the house.
As the children grew and “left the nest”, we were back to the original two. However, the love didn’t diminish, it only grew through the years and we can still call it our “home”.
Fannie Moore lives in Shongaloo.