Home is where the roaches are
If you live locally and have ever driven down Franklin Street in Hagerstown, you’ve likely passed where I used to live.
My first apartment was a second-floor walk-up in a building that I think dated to the early 19th century. Maybe Abraham Lincoln lived there as a child, I don’t know. But when I lived there, I loved it because it was my “first home.”
Looking back now, I realize what a ramshackle dive it was. The old-world linoleum on the floor of the (insert air quotes here) “dining room” was faded, cracked, and broken. It must have been manufactured back before plastic was invented and linoleum was chiseled out of logs. The pilot light of a tiny gas stove in the kitchen had to be lit by hand for each use, and I shared my living space with enough cockroaches to populate any large science experiment.
My bedroom windows faced the busy street, so I often wore earplugs to sleep. There was no such thing as AC, so in the summertime, I’d lie in bed at night and listen through the open windows to the conversations floating up from the street below as people passed. Hagerstown has been called a town “where there’s a bar and a laundromat on every corner” and Franklin Street was no exception. The bar on my block was right next door, so the conversations I overheard were often… well, let’s say, enlightening. Late one night, two guys were leaving the bar together and I heard one say: “So you didn’t get laid tonight. Tomorrow is another day!”
The Scarlett O’Hara philosophy of sexual conquest lifts the spirit and displays a positive attitude that I’ve always found admirable. I’ve often wondered if the recipient of that sage advice did, in fact, get laid the next day. Hope endures, I guess…?
One of the many amenities that my little Franklin Street home did NOT have was off-street parking. Parking along the street was the only option. This was particularly fun in the wintertime after a snowfall, when the plows came through. Within minutes, the street was clear, but three tons of snow had been pushed to the side, burying each parked car. Since I worked nights at the local newspaper, coming home late was always a crap shoot as to which giant snow bank I’d be able to take a flying leap and lodge my car into, hoping the back end was far enough off the road that I wouldn’t get clipped by oncoming traffic.
My apartment was not alone in its crumbling charm. A co-worker at the time told me that in his apartment, he avoided opening his refrigerator door at all costs because his upstairs neighbor’s leaky toilet was just above it, and getting baptized with urine once while getting food out of his fridge was more than enough.
In spite of its quirks and its lacking, I loved my little hovel. It was my first real home and all I could afford at the time. For years, I’d been watching soap operas, as well as shows like Dallas and Dynasty, where the beautiful people entertained, hosting their stylish friends in their swanky, palatial homes. I’d take note of how their homes were decorated and how they entertained, and once I got my own place, I copied them as much as my credit cards would allow. After all, I had finally reached adulthood. I was an independent career woman, out on my own, in my very own home. I was just like Mary Richards on the Mary Tyler Moore show of the 70s. It was time to spread my wings and host my own soirees for my friends, as seen on TV!
Admittedly, my place wasn’t quite as posh, but I chose to view it through the rose-colored lens of upbeat, hopeful youth — or an enthusiastic Realtor: It was “charming, in the Victorian, historic district.” My adult friends and I had great times in my dilapidated little roach-infested, cracked-linoleum first home.
