Dirty dishes

Friday nights were date nights. Not for me or any one of my eight brothers and sisters, but for mom and dad.
Once Drew turned twelve, for us, Friday nights included macaroni and cheese from or box or sometimes homemade pizza with hamburger meat and cheddar cheese, and Nick at Nite in mom and dad's room. Basically it was a free-for-all. The boys were in charge, but with a Nintendo 64 in the house and no parental supervision, a brawl would always take place at about 7 p.m.over who cheated at Mario Kart.
We all had chores we were assigned to do, with the promise of a treat when mom and dad arrived back home. Being the oldest girl, I always was in charge of putting the dishes in the dishwasher. I loathed this chore. It was impossible to complete before everyone was in bed, because dirty dishes were always accumulating. Often, I left the stacks of orange stained bowls and plates for too long and would fall asleep without completing my chore. Meant I got a stern shake at 10 p.m. , and the sharp voice of my mother saying, "Destry, you didn't do the dishes", which to my preteen ears was as bad as a nightmare coming true.

Poetry

The sounds of summer at the Highway 24 house was mom's dishwasher churning on an endless cycle, bearing a load of soiled dishes from the most recent feeding of us nine kids, passing semitruck brakes shrieking to a stop at the bottom of Radar Hill, and the lawn mower. How I always avoided the dreaded task of mowing the lawn is a lucky coincidence. I happened to have two older brothers and at only 10-11, was just a bit too small and weak to push the mower in a straight line.
After Drew or Dustin had finished the task, and the white New Balance sneakers stained with streaks of green were tossed on the show shelf , I could sit under the blue sky on the trampoline and read my book, with sweet smells of overturned dirt and cut grass perfuming the air. Sometimes I would write. Not stories or poems, but just write to feel the satisfaction of the ink gliding from the pen to the paper and the thrill of forming letters with perfect penmanship.
My grandmother had a book of poems at her house that I loved, so I took it. The poems were about the colors of the rainbow and I loved to read them and imagine them. Each color was it's own poem, and I laid belly-down on the black canvas and copied those lovely poems into my steno notebook. When I finished, I ripped the pages out, and  not sure what I would do with them, left them side the cover of the book.
Weeks later, I found the book and knew I should return to to grandmas. After school, I walked across the playground and down Catalpa street to the house with the giant split Birch tree. This was a walk I frequented two or three times per week, usually to help with the paper route. That's why I walked that road today, but before I started folding and banding the papers I returned the book, removing my copied pages. The pages were left with my book bag on the pleather couch while I did my section of the paper route.
By the time I returned to Catalpa street, the book of poems was completely forgotten, and I settled in to watch "Law and Order" with grandpa while waiting for dad to pick me up after work to take me home.
Days later, my grandmother found those copied pages, and was amazed by the poems. She congratulated me with a dumbfounded look and a smile, wondering how I had hid this talent. I never had the heart to tell her I didn't write them.

Saturdays

Saturdays were the best days. Instead of wearing khaki trousers and plaid button up shirts, dad would come down the hall in faded jeans and t-shirt whistling a John Phillips Sousa tune. After completing our list of chores delegated by mom, we worked in the yard. Being a girl, I usually was assigned carport duty and avoided the more laborious chores of the older boys. The driveway ended with a large cement carport in front of a double garage. The cement was prime for rollerblading and shooting hoops into the fiberglass basketball hoop, but needed continuous sweeping from the heavy dust storms that rampaged the area. I was to use a large push broom to clear the carport, and then the regular kitchen broom to get the corners and sides of the house. The weight of the push broom made my feeble arms shake, and I needed frequent rests. It seemed to me this task would take hours, for by the time I cleared a perfect white path on the cement, a burst of wind would come blowing gravel and dirt across my completed work.

The older boys worked on projects. Like building cinder block retaining walls or underground sprinklers. This was harder work. I could tell by the way Drew’s face fell when the command came to turn off their video games and meet dad outside, and the way Dustin grumbled as he put on his worn white sneakers. Sometimes they would disagree about the usefulness of the projects, but dad said he was, “building boys into men, not blocks into walls”.

West Highway 24

There were five Killian kids when we moved to the house on Highway 24. Almost six. Davi was born that October, right after us older kids started school. I was only in the first grade, but I was no stranger to moving houses. But this house would be special. I knew it right away because there were two staircases. Only the best houses had two sets of staircases. I immediately though what an advantage this would be if ever a burglar broke in. We would always have a way to run and escape. One staircase was a traditional set of straight stairs with short tan carpet worn out in the middles, but the other was a wrought-iron spiral staircase that ran from the back of the hallway down to the linoleum covered basement. Not everyone had a grand, twirling set of stairs. We just had to stay in this house for more than a few months.

The outside yards were perfect for a six year old girl, especially one with two older brothers. Drew, who was three years her elder, would fill the pens with chickens and roosters. There was a small irrigation pond in the middle of the front yard with a gravel country drive wrapping around. Snake grass and tumbleweeds surrounded the unkempt pond, but having six kids had its advantages. Saturday mornings would be spend with a hoe and rake for some time.

The backyard was the true gem. The back garage door opened up to a field of green grass. A majestic walnut tree stood at the end of the yard, its expansive branches reaching heavenward. Clusters of raspberry and blackberry brambles rolled down the right side of the yard, followed by a small grove of cherry and apple trees. A steel swing set frame was the only thing to break the landscape, and would naturally be a companion for the trampoline.

The left side yard was designated as the garden plot, and the grass was overturned to expose the rich brown soil in a neat 10x15 foot rectangle. Garden vegetables grew well in the central Washington climate, and our garden was no exception. The plots of pumpkins, tomatoes, green peas, zucchini, and watermelon were the view from the wrap around porch.

 My childhood was spent on that porch balancing barefooted on the wooden railing, with the sweet warm breeze on my face and all my dreams within reach.