I loved driving/ riding with friends around town seeing the houses and the fact that most times each house is different from the other. Even when I travelled, I enjoyed house seeing.
The first house I saw in the US was my aunt's home in San Fransisco way back in 1984 when we had gone for a visit and I was in awe of the carpet all over the house. The multiple floors in the house (we had just 1 floor in our home in India and so did most family and friend's house). A nice big garage with tools on a big wooden board at an uncles home in Denver. A basement and 2 floors at my aunt's home in Pittsburgh. It almost felt like I needed a map to get around the houses. I guess I was a lot smaller too then, so everything seemed bigger ;)
When I went back to the US in 1998 to study, all the people I knew were living in apartments. Friends who were working, friends who were studying and some friends who had just graduated and starting jobs.
The apartments were also nice - carpet in all rooms, big living area, some had nice balconies and all had swimming pools which was very useful in the Texas summers. Only in around 2000 did I start seeing friends move into houses - think of moving into larger, fancier apartments, start renting houses etc. I had thought about moving into a house with friends, but school loans, car loans etc and the fear of having a big 30 year loan were some of the reasons I didn't move to a house.
I shifted 8 times in the 8 years I was in the US. The last one being from an apartment to another apartment in the same floor, across the hall actually. So all I did to move was to open both doors and swing and throw things across the hallway.
I lived with 3 other roomies at school in a 2 bedroom apartment initially. Rent was around 100$ a month. I then moved to a friend's apartment where I slept on the couch for a month, before we moved into a 2 bedroom apartment. He got married a few months later and I had the two bedroom apartment all to myself. I then moved into a single bedroom apartment in the same apartment complex, then to a 2 bedroom apartment in the same complex (it worked out cheaper since they had some sweet summer deal), after which I moved into a HOUSE. The DELTA HOUSE.
A friend of mine from soccer, Rik, was living in this OLD house (over 100 years old now) with a couple of his friends and they were moving out, right about the time my lease was expiring at the apartment, and since Rik was also a sports geek, it made sense for me to move into the delta house. The delta house was on a real quiet street, with large old trees, older neighbors and was a very quiet neighborhood. The delta house, though, had its fair share of parties and police officer visits to help keep the noise level low and non quiet madness....
The delta had wooden flooring, wooden stairs that led to a single bedroom upstairs, had a ping pong table at the first living room, had a second living room where we watch tv a lot, had a music room with carpet flooring and curved roofs to improve acoustics (the lady who built the house taught music and had this room to teach her students the piano), a kitchen with a gas heater for the winter, 2 bedrooms and a single bathroom on the ground floor.
There was a wonderful back porch and a huge backyard with a brick grill.
There was also a basement which was dark and was used to store junk.
The first time I visited the delta was I think in 2000, when a Bender was being held. They had a shot block (block of ice 2'X3'X4' with carved grooves from which shots were poured down and you would have to stick your mouth at the end to get a cold shot. The shot would be chosen based on which drink a disc you rotate landed on), lots of barbecue, burgers, and a ton of food. We were there till the party ended and that was when all my friends first heard an Indian say "Luke I am your father".
I loved the house and went to a couple other parties there as well and really liked the neighbour hood it was in. The zoo was close by. Downtown was 2 miles away. The colonial golf course was around the corner. The river was a hop step jump away.
So when Rik asked me if I wanted to move in, I jumped at the offer.
I had to get a couple of things fixed at the delta - put a 2 man papasan on the front porch. Fixed the fan on the front porch. Got the mosquito door fixed to my room. Got the locks fixed in my room, so I could come and go thru the separate door to my room. Got the AC repaired and I was good to go.
It was just Rik and me initially at the delta house and Cleigh (a.k.a Noodles) joined us in a couple of months. That was when we had our first party there. Goodbye J, Hi Cleigh was the title of the party and Noodles made a nice poster for the party and it was a blast.
Rik was very organized and sent out excel sheets of who owed who how much for electricity, water and rent and we all paid him by cheque. We had one car park and took turns parking in the drive way under the covered parking, while the two others parked either in the drive way or on the street.
We did our own dished. We had shelves for each of us for our food in the fridge and also had separate detergents for our laundry. It was a simple system and I think worked really well for boys :).
There were 3 of us and just 1 restroom, but worked out well for us as we all went to work at different times. In the summer, it got HOT, but fans in each room (including the living rooms) + ACs in each of our rooms helped keep the place cool. I bought a few timers that were programmed to turn the AC on in my room at 4, since I got home at 430 and it would be 100 degrees in the summer.
In the winter, there was a gas heater in the kitchen that had to be lit from the basement and Rik would light it once each year. I bought a heater for my room in the winter and it worked out well for me.
Rik's band BENDER practiced in the music room at the delta house, after placing several mattresses on the doors and closing all the windows as our neighbors were quiet people and we thought they wouldn't want to be disturbed.
BENDER was real popular the time that I stayed at the Delta, and they kept all the equipment here, so I would often help move the speakers, guitars, etc to and from the delta house and would get free entry into the place where they were playing as I could say "I'm with the band" :).
Sitting out in the front porch on the papasan, keeping my room door open, but the mosquito door closed, while playing some music and watching the rain was something I LOVED doing when it rained. In the winter too, it was nice to sit on the porch and relax. Summers were a bit too hot to sit in the porch, but the rest of the seasons were great.
There was also a short wall on which people could sit all around the porch and talk. That was a common hang out place for Rik Bubba Noodles and me to talk about some of our war stories, about religion, politics and a bunch of other fun stuff.
After Noodles moved in, we would almost daily have ping pong matches and Noodles would always try his FUNKY serve to try and hit the EDGE of the table and win the point on the serve itself! All 3 of us being sports guys (Noodles Swam for TCU - Rik was serious into Volleyball and I was a serious Basketball player), it was fun to play ping pong, watch NFL or NBA and yell and scream at the TV.
There was always beer in the fridge and Gatorade as well.
Friends would always drop by and we used the grill a lot in the summer as we threw some sausages, pre-marinated chicken or steaks at the begining of the month after we had just gotten our salaries and had some friends over and chatted over dinner.
Citronella candles and bamboo lamps were what we used to get rid of the mosquitos.
I would also often (mostly once a week) have co-workers over for an early breakfast - pancakes/ waffles/ sausage/ bacon etc before heading out to work.
I would also sometimes cycle thru some back roads to the path that led to the trinity, which would allow me to cycle to work. Work was close and coming home for lunch was also a nice perk. Sneak in a nap sometimes, or just relax and watch sports center before heading back to work. The wooden floors gave it a charm and the history behind the house was nice to hear.
One of the fireplaces was painted red white and blue when the original Delta residents (Luke/ John and Rik) moved in, right after 9/11.
The trees were old and we had to get the branches trimmed a couple of times when I was there. The road was tarmac once when I was there. We got to know some of the neighbors and it was nice living in the Delta house.
We once had a mouse in our house and we tried all sorts of tricks - mouse trap with cheese/ with peanut butter; rat paper with peanut butter etc but never caught him. When Rik was out of town once, I walked into the kitchen and saw what looked like a coiled up toy snake on the counter next to the stove, and walked right past it thinking "I wonder when Rik put the snake on the counter". A second later I looked back and saw it hissing and quickly disappeared behind the stove. The snake hunter/ pest guy came but said that he can catch it only if he can see it. He went downstairs and said that the rats (RATS? We had just one MOUSE buddy!!!) were the reason why the snake came. I never saw the mouse again, I never saw teh snake again as well. That night tho, I slept with 1 eye open, a pillow at the foot of the door to prevent even AIR from entering my room and woke up several times. When Rik returned, we cleaned up the basement, we tried unsuccessfully to burn down the old carpet that was thrown down there and sent up smoke 40feet high. We had to quickly douse the fire and take the carpet in a friends truck to a dumpster and throw it in quickly.
I had a great time at the delta house and really enjoyed the quiet time, the party time, as well as the deep conversation times there.
