This Old House

Eight years ago today James and I closed on our very first house, our little house in Cheyenne. We were so excited to own our own home that we went out to dinner at Red Lobster, another first for us. I guess we were just so excited about buying a home that there were a few things we failed to notice when we looked at the house. Like the fact that it was only half a block away from an enormous oil refinery! To this day, we still ask ourselves how we could not have seen that! The house was pretty old. The original part (original part consisted of one bedroom, the living room, and kitchen. The other bedroom, the very small bathroom, laundry room, and dining room were added throughout the years.) was built in 1925. It had terrible carpet and some pretty terrible windows that shook when the wind blew. And this was Wyoming, so the wind did blow quite regularly. But it had a nice big flat yard with some huge trees in the front. Stephen got a tire swing for his 2nd birthday and we put it in the tree you can see in the picture above. After we moved the driveway to the side of the backyard we had a nice big garden area. We grew some really nice beets in that garden. To bad neither of us really like beets! We tried potatoes too and got great big beautiful vines, but no potatoes. Evidently that's just the way it is in Cheyenne. No one else in our ward could grow potatoes either.

Looking back at our time in that house, I am amazed we lived there for as long as we did. It was quite literally on the wrong side of the tracks. I mentioned earlier that we were half a block away from the oil refinery. It was to the south of us. Well a block and a half in the other direction took us to the railroad yard, and a very busy railroad yard it was, too. We could hear trains at almost all times of the day and night. Then about six blocks to the west of us was an ambulance shed. We saw and heard ambulances at least three times a day. Stephen and Annie absolutely loved it. As soon as they would hear a siren, they would run as fast as they could to the nearest window to watch the ambulance go past. If by some chance they missed seeing it, they would cry as if they were never going to see another ambulance again. Our house was next to a very busy street and with traffic comes accidents. The worst I remember happened in the middle of the night one night. Anne was just a baby so my ears were always tuned to listen for her in the night. I guess she was the only thing I would wake up for because I was suddenly surprised to wake up and see James standing at the window and bright red and blue lights flashing on the ceiling. A drunk driver had lost control right near our corner and ended up in our neighbor's tree just kitty-corner from us. If that tree hadn't been there, he would have ended up in our neighbor's kitchen. I had slept through the crash and the sirens.

A few months later we had another exciting experience. I had just put Stephen and Anne down for naps one afternoon when all of a sudden there was a great big boom and all the windows shook. I immediately went to check on the kids and as I was going past the window that faced south I happened to glimpse a huge ball of fire at the top of one of the towers at the oil refinery. Everything turned out fine, but we did end up spending the rest of the day at my friend Heather's house who lived on the other side of town.

We never really knew any of our neighbors there. It kind of bothered me at the time. But I think that was probably all for the best. When Stephen was 3 and Anne was almost 2, Stephen came to me and said, "Come see policeman." So I came to the window and saw not just one policeman but about 20 policemen surrounding my neighbor's house. They were there for about 30 to 45 minutes. Dad was Chief Deputy at the time and the kids had recently seen him in uniform and Annie was positive that he was over there amongst all those policemen. Towards the end of the standoff two of the officers walked across the street towards our house because they had parked their car in the alley behind our house. Anne ran to the back door calling "Pagaw, Pagaw!" (Both Stephen and Annie said "Pagaw" for Grandpa when they were little.) She was so disappointed when they drove away and no Grandpa came. We read in the paper the next day that there had been a meth bust in the house across the street.

I'm afraid it sounds like we hated living there. We really didn't. Yes the location could have been better, but it did have some advantages. We could just sit in our back yard and have perfect seats for the air show put on by the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds every summer. That was a lot of fun! And we really did love Cheyenne. I never wanted to live in Wyoming. But it was wonderful. Cheyenne really was a pretty nice town (if you could get on the right side of the tracks) and the people there were just awesome. We loved our ward there. It was pretty neat to live in the capital of the state and still only have a population of 50,000 people. I saw the governor shopping in SAM's club one day. He was just getting a few groceries like I was. He's a democrat, by the way. And a member of the NRA. Dave Freudenthal. I think he's still the governor.

Anyway... Sorry to make this such a long post. I guess I'm feeling a little nostalgic tonight. That house we bought and lived in for almost 5 years isn't there anymore. The busy street we lived next to needed to be expanded and our house was in the way. Not that I regret that. It came at the perfect time for us, and we got a really good deal. If the city or county or state ever wants to buy your house, DO IT! They really don't rip you off. And thanks for putting up with my long post. It feels good to have this all typed out.