Lately we have been doing some nostalgic writing and when July 28 came up on the calendar I just had to put something down on paper to share with readers of THE WORDWRIGHT, so welcome to my world as Jim Reeves would say...
BILL VENRICK

NEARLY HALF A CENTURY AGO...

Or, you could say, "Four and a half decades ago, July 28, 1964, Bill and Jean Venrick moved into their "all they could afford" house. We had lived in two places since our jaunt to Hobbs, New Mexico (and several points in Ohio) until it was discovered "the ministry" was not exactly the mold Bill fit in sufficiently to warrant a life-time profession. Not that "we turned our back on the Lord", though, because "Bill and Jean Venrick" were always quite busy "in the vineyard of the Lord" -- we just decided the pew was a better platform than the pulpit. But I digress in getting started in the 45-Year-Story.

YES, Tuesday, July 28, marked the day that we moved into our "new house" in Lancaster, Ohio but it was sans carpet (plywood floor in the Living Room) and the walls were "new plaster white" for more than a year before we decided to adapt a color scheme. The carpet came sooner, of course, but as is the case of many new home owners, you cut here and there to get the price in the range of affordability.[the way it used to be instead of "no money down" and "no interest until 365 days later"]. We had shopped around several months while we were living in our first [little] mortgaged home, deciding whether to join the crowd of Development Houses or a "private contractor" and told the latter all we could afford. He took our self-drawn plans (and top-dollar figure) home and several days later came back and told us "the best I can do is $10,700.00." $10,000 had been our top-dollar amount so that was within the ball park and we struck a deal. From the day we struck the deal, 58 days later we moved into the house this "45 years story" is all about.

Our house was built on the east side of our street which was the dividing line of a development which, for some reason, was not a part of a major development in Lancaster. Right across the street a now 85 year old woman is the oldest resident in our block of close neighbors. The house next to hers was owned by a man who was in East Elementary School when I was a kid. The other side of our oldest neighbor was occupied by another former high school classmate. Just a few years later, a couple built right next to our house and I had been a fellow high school band member of this woman's brother.

Since my father-in-law was a professional carpenter we had involved him in the building of our house in a limited way--he built the custom cabinetry in our bathroom (that helped keep the price of our house lower). Our house was a two-bedroom dwelling, bath, kitchen, living room and half-finished basement--the other half was the garage, since our plot was one of those where the driveway goes right into the "basement" level (you know the arrangement I'm sure). We were the first family to build on the last half of an otherwise city block and only a few years went by before "the rest of that blank ground" filled up with four more houses. The neighbor directly south of our house was a family who had lived right across the street in the house from which we had just moved - we liked that coincidence.

But back to our house. The living room walls showed tell-tale roller splattering from the varnished doors which had been "rolled" when leaned against the newly plastered walls; the roller splattering clearly delineated where the doors had leaned against the wall. We thought nothing of it, and to use my father-in-law's phrase, he "didn't think much of it either"-- not too careful workmanship! But to a young couple who was glad to get settled in their new house, what made the difference?

Our house was small - about 1200 square feet and with just two people, that was good enough for now and 45 years later it is "just right" for two (old) people. Back in 1964 when our house was the first one in this half-block, it was also "at the bottom of the hill." Remember what always comes down hill? WATER. Well, when the first BIG rain came that was our first lesson on "water running down hill" but more specifically in the form of a very thin slurry of mud--right through our basement walls! Even as serious and non-funny as that was, it was even funnier to see our neighbor to the south of us madly scurrying around his house digging trenches to direct the water around his house so he wouldn't have the same thing! This water problem was solved when the neighbors started coming along to the north of us when their grass began to take hold.

Fast forward a few years. Children come along, naturally, and not so naturally. After "losing three children" in our first fifteen years of marriage we had given up on a family until 1966 when we decided to adopt one - no, we adopted two children, and within 9 months! Our daughter was 26 months old and our son was 14-1/2 months old at their adoption. Four years later we needed to add a bedroom. Enter father-in-law again. Jean's father again was a life-saver and great teacher on how to save (more) money. After deciding on a 14-foot square room addition, we started "collecting" the necessities to build on a much needed room.

I used a 2-week vacation to help my father-in-law do routine block laying for the basement portion. But previous to that actual laying blocks I visited a local concrete block manufacturer in town who welcomed us to help him by taking some typical "seconds" from his stacks of finished blocks. Not that the blocks were so poorly made they wouldn't work, they just would not suit a discriminating builder. We used all the "inferior" blocks for under-ground where they would not be seen and used brand new "perfect" blocks above the ground level. The main level (above the basement) was pretty much the same--we scouted and scarfed up every bit of building supplies we could that would be "unseen" and boy were there gold-mines if you just opened your eyes. One quick for-instance was the black insulation panels popular then. A local lumber yard had a poor habit of stacking the seconds of this product on "just another pile" instead of putting a BAD ONE on top of the good ones--and any strong winds always found a way to ruin the top of the stack). No guessing required--"Where did we get a lot of our black panel insulation?" YEP, off that inferior stack--and for a real discount. We not only used the full sheets (when available, on the outside surface) we cut strips of the black panels to fit within the studs and after filling the typical insulation space with usual insulation we made a chase-like form to "top off" that space with MORE insulation with the "strips of black insulation". Consequently our new room is the best insulated part of our house! After about a month we had a new bedroom at the cost of $900. And didn't have to borrow a dime--we just bought as we needed it with several months of planning. I doubt if I ever spent a more profitable vacation, even if my very inadequate talents were not the best and, of course my work continued after my vacation ended as well.

Perhaps we might tell another story or two later about how our house took on changes. So far, we've been able to talk ourselves out of a condo move--so guess we will see if we can hit fifty years in this little house.

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