A Place to Love #TBT

I took all of my college-level English courses at the stellar Waco, TX institution, MCC (or McLennan Community College). Mr. McKeown was my first ever college English instructor. One evening, after grading my diagnostic essay, “A Place to Love,” he decided to read an excerpt to the whole class. He read the following paragraph:

Many different kinds of berry bushes grew around those buildings. The raspberry bushes stood tall and proud with strong ropes carrying their weight. I loved the raspberries. They tasted so sweet that you could eat them straight of the bush. Other berries, such as gooseberries and black and red currants, were less interesting until they ended up in jellies or desserts.

Mr McKeown looked up and said with pride, “nobody has ever written that sentence before.”

It was a great moment.

Teachers can push us down or lift us up. Mr. McKeown was a lifter upper. He kindly helped me hone my writing skills, and I am forever grateful.

So, without further ado, in honor of Throwback Thursday and all encouraging English teachers out there, here is my essay from English 1301.52, dated September 9, 1998:

A Place to Love

When I was growing up, my family was always on the move. We never lived anywhere for more than four years. Our surroundings were always changing and it was hard to find, and keep, a special place. However, there was a place that never changed. This special place was my Grandparents’ homey, yellow house and the big, beautiful yard that surrounded it.

To me, the yard was the best place in the world. The gravel walk, leading up to the front door, was always neatly raked in straight lines. Colorful flowers lined the walk in spring and summer. Their colors were usually coordinated with the colors of the Swedish flag, which waved on the tall, white flagpole.

The yard had fruit trees scattered all around it. There were apple trees that we climbed when nobody was watching. There were pear trees and plum trees on which the fruit never seemed to ripen fast enough. There were cherry trees as well, with branches hanging down so low that even us kids could reach the precious fruit.

If you walked deeper into the yard, you came to the big bushes that concealed a secret place where we read books and gathered for tea parties. We served the tea from a kettle that grandmother didn’t need any more and poured it into cups with no ears. We even had furniture. A big box served as our table, and we sat on pieces of firewood. To us, it couldn’t be better.

The big, yellow house was not the only building on the premises. Not far from our secret place stood the brown guest house, which smelled of old books and dust. Off to the left lay the old, yellow hen house, my favorite place to spend the night. Beyond the hen house stood a row of red-painted sheds. This was where the outhouse, firewood, tools, and junk were located. The fact that the sheds always were locked up added a bit of mystery to them.

Many different kinds of berry bushes grew around those buildings. The raspberry bushes stood tall and proud with strong ropes carrying their weight. I loved the raspberries. They tasted so sweet that you could eat them straight of the bush. Other berries, such as gooseberries and black and red currants, were less interesting until they ended up in jellies or desserts.

In the back of the yard, a barbed wire fence separated the property from a horse pastures where little white flowers, “vitsippor,” covered the ground in spring. A vegetable garden grew on our side of the fence. We sowed carrots, beets, radishes, and potatoes and then waited impatiently for the plants to grow. Grandfather often let us help with the thinning out. After we finished one row, we were allowed to eat the sweet, little carrots we had pulled from the earth.

When we walked back toward the house after a hard day’s play, we always strolled through Grandmother’s flower garden where the air smelled of roses and lilacs. Skipping up to the back door, we also passed the tender tomato plants, which Grandmother did not allow us to touch. As the sun set, we all gathered around the flag pole and sang our national anthem, “Du Gamla, Du Fria,” as Grandfather gently lowered the yellow and blue flag.

Those days and evenings are gone now. The big, yellow house belongs to another family, and new children are playing in the beautiful yard. However, the memories of this special place are mine, and they will be with me always.

The End