The Hallway

The hallway in the home where I grew up is about fifteen feet long.   That’s five “giant steps” for me in a current game of “Mother May I”.  I was almost three when we moved into the house, so it seemed much longer.  It hasn’t grown, but I have.

I believe that Mom and Dad bought the hallway, and the rest of the house for that matter, because my sister, Sharron, was about to be born.  Back then you didn’t know if you were having a boy or a girl.  Four years later another unknown was born, Jackie.  I openly wished for a brother both times but having two sisters worked out fine.

The hallway commands traffic for the entire house.  You cross it to enter the kitchen from the living room.   The opposite is true as well.  Most of my life our family members entered through the side door, so the kitchen was the primary point of entry.  You turned left from the kitchen to go “upstairs”.  “Upstairs” was originally “unfinished”.  Mom and Dad had it remodeled to provide us with a third bedroom.  The “upstairs” had a Dutch door.

Turning right down the hall took you to our single bathroom, a large bedroom on the left and a small bedroom straight ahead. The entire left side of the hallway has built-in closets, cupboards and drawers.  Just past the bathroom door there is a small built-in shelf for the family phone (retired and relocated decades ago).  The “in the wall archway” above the phone housed the doorbell chimes.  The chimes, in addition to serving a distinct function, were decorative.

The hallway was a key to our family.  The three kids ran down it while chasing each other.   We waited in it to take a bath or do our duty.  And I remember two times when Sharron and I waited in the hall for our turn to receive a “spanking” from Dad.  Being the oldest, I was first in line.  I was a quick crier, so Sharron didn’t have to wait long.  Sharron refused to cry so her release to the hallway was delayed.

The hallway was the gathering place on Christmas morning.  We entered as an anxious group to see if Santa had come.   He always did.

Grandma Tebo lived with us for several months after Grandpa Tebo passed.  She had the small bedroom at the end of the hall.  Her room was sparsely furnished but it featured her rocking chair.  I stood in the hall sometimes to watch her “darn” my dad’s white work socks, crochet doilies, or read her bible while she rocked.

One evening, when I was about ten, Dad received a phone call from one of his army buddies.  The man and several other army friends had run into each other at the State Fair where the first friend was working in the sheep barn judging sheep.  The guys asked if they could come over to see my dad. We had six or seven visitors that night.

The girls and I had to go to bed, but I snuck down the stairs and hid behind the Dutch door.  I listened to their stories from the war throughout the entire night.  They were in the army corps of engineers and served together in the Pacific.  They talked about building bridges across rivers while being shot at by the Japanese and then blowing the bridges up after our forces had advanced.  They discussed several adventures.  Some were “fun” but most were dangerous.  They also spoke of friends who didn’t come home. I learned several new words that night. It was the only time that I ever heard my dad speak of his time overseas.  The only way I heard the stories was because he didn’t know that I was listening.  And I never told him.

The phone on the built-in hallway stand was hooked to a “party line”.  I was too young to figure out the difference in ring tones so sometimes when I answered someone else was already on the line.   I remember four calls from my youth that changed our family forever.  Two were happy calls and two were sad.

In December of 1955 Mom and Dad took my two sisters and me to see Santa Claus.  After we returned home, the hallway phone rang.  My dad answered.  He spoke briefly and then walked through the living room and out to the front porch.  As he passed through the living room, he told me that “Grandpa Tebo died”.  Grandpa had fallen and broken his hip a couple of weeks prior.  He developed pneumonia while in the hospital and died in his sleep.  I watched dad as he stood alone on the front porch.  That’s the first time that I ever saw him cry.

On December 7, 1957, the hallway phone rang again.   This time Uncle Harry Barner called to tell us that Linda Lee had been born.  I already had four girl cousins, two sisters, and only one boy cousin from the Barner side of the family.  Gene and were outnumbered six to two.  Linda Lee only added to my outnumbered dismay.

Within the year she learned to crawl.  She became my playmate whenever she visited.  We played a crawling game of hide and seek in the hallway and adjoining rooms.  As a result of our playful game, I welcomed her to the family even though she was a girl.

The following December we received another call.  It was early morning as I was getting up to go to school.  I had the bedroom at the end of the hall and the phone was just outside my door.  I listened as Mom learned that her mom, Grandma Barner, had a heart attack during the night and never woke up.  It was another terribly sad time for our family.

Two months later we received a February phone call.  My bedroom remained near the hallway phone, and I jumped up and down on my bed with joy when I learned that David Carter had been born.  Uncle Harry and Aunt Phyllis had come through with “A BOY”.  Halleluiah!

As I got older, I took the hallway for granted.   It was just a passageway that allowed me to get from one place to another within the house.  During my teens Mom and Dad added a phone in the basement and moved the hallway phone to the kitchen.   I used the basement phone to talk to girls while my tormenting sisters sat on the steps and listened.

The hallway phone pedestal sat empty and remains that way today.  Sometime along the way the decorative hallway chimes became silent.  They passed with age like other seldom used items.

My sister, Jackie, still lives in the house.  While she moved away a couple of times, she returned to the home of her birth and now the hallway belongs to her.  We spoke on our cell phones earlier this week.  She told me that she had removed the silent chimes and wondered what to do with the space.  I offered a couple of suggestions that I know she’ll never use.  Sometimes brother’s suggestions aren’t visually pleasing or practical.

No matter what she does, even if it’s nothing, the hallway will remain.  Its memory is locked firmly in my brain and will remain so until someone has to make a call about me.