I walked into the office of a fellow REALTOR today and she was listing to Miranda Lambert and "The House That Built Me". We started discussing ... what else .... the "houses that built us".... This brought back beautiful memories for me. My 5 siblings and I were raised in Raceland, Louisiana. We first moved there when I was 5 or 6. We lived in a small (for 8 people) home, my Dad went to work every day - he was a physician and worked very long hours. We ate supper together every night - after he got home from work, whatever time that was.... My Mom stayed home with all of us - a very full time job indeed. Soon after moving to Raceland, we did hire a housekeeper/babysitter that came and helped my Mom and few days a week. Her name was Mrs. Estay - we simply called her "Estay". She stayed on as the Cardwell housekeeper/babysitter until sometime in the mid 1990's - over 30 years ! She was part of our family... and the "house that built me". I can remember in this house - on Friday and Saturday nights, we got to pull out the sofa bed and sleep in the den while watching the "Midnight Special" with Wolfman Jack - fun times.
My parents bought a lot to build a home in the same subdivision of the "old" house. We used to ALL, as a family, ride our bikes from the "old" house to the "new" house during construction - I can remember roller skating on the slab - that was cool ! We moved into this house when I was in 5th grade and there began the second chapter of the "house that built me".
This house is what my parents worked so hard for - for us Cardwell kids to have the best - not the best material things but the best "life lessons", the best place for friends and family to gather, the best memories to treasure forever and this is exactly what it was !
The birthday parties with "Cardwell classic" yellow cake/chocolate icing - always surrounded by our most precious friends and family, slumber parties, card games, hide and seek (outside), neighborhood basketball games, softball games, peeling shrimp (and recruiting our friends to help - with a little bribe by Mom to fry some up when we were done) - Estay was a big help here because she was the fastest shrimp peeler of all time, CYO retreats, parties - some that Mom/Dad knew about - some they didn't, Dad calling and saying "put the ice in the glasses" - this meant he was leaving the hospital which was about a mile from the house and would be home for supper in 5 minutes, the smell, or I guess I should say the sweet scent of onions and celery sauteing on the stove - and the end result always being something very yummy, helping to clean the kitchen after supper - unless you were punished, then you had to clean the whole kitchen by yourself... JANE CARDWELL can maybe tell you a little about this.., , Easter egg hunts, family Christmas, always an "extra" kid or two hanging around, the first granchild came along and this began the annual (to this day) Grandfather/Granddaughter weenie roast in the fall - so many wonderful memories- this was our home !
I have been gone from Raceland for 10 years now. I go back every now and then and am pretty sure I will not ever live there again. "The house" was SOLD in 2011. My parents moved here to Prairieville. The "house that built me" is not mine or ours anymore but all of the memories we made there are what I remember and will always remember when I think of HOME.
What does the "house that built" you look like?
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