This old house

Upstairs at Aunt Margaret’s, the bedroom ceiling slanted sharply on one side. At the end of the slanted ceiling was a row of cabinet doors. Behind those cabinet doors were exotic treasures: dress-up clothes rolled up in bags, old cars and trucks hidden away in cardboard boxes, and the best thing of all—a red and white metal doll stroller with a bald-headed baby strapped inside.

When I stayed at Aunt Margaret’s, I always played with that stroller. But Aunt Margaret never took me upstairs to get it right away. She fed me snacks at the kitchen table, asked me what I’d been doing with my seven-year-old life, and purposely, I see now, withheld any offer of getting that doll stroller down from the upstairs cabinets.

She wanted me to ask. I remember standing by the stairs, watching her back while she worked at the kitchen sink, trying to summon the courage to inquire whether I could, perhaps, just this once, if I was really really good, get the doll stroller down to play with.

“Oh, you want that old doll stroller?” Aunt Margaret would say, clearly relishing a game that was lost on me at the time. “Why, I suppose we could see if it’s still there. I hope nothing’s happened to it. Come on, follow me.”

I’d cross my fingers and up we’d go, to the secret cupboards where the metal stroller and its bald-headed baby awaited, still safe, every time.  

I’m glad I had an aunt like that, one who created hold-your-breath anticipation over a doll stroller. And I miss those houses that I knew growing up, where every floor was filled with secret nooks and crannies that held the stuff of childhood adventure.

Houses of that era had clever built-in spaces that served as landing spots for TV trays painted with gold flowers, tall black umbrellas, soft fedora hats, and sewing boxes with accordion trays that, once unfurled, revealed mysterious objects like thimbles, spools of tangled thread, pieces of dusty chalk, and scissors so tiny, the Lilliputians would have struggled to use them.

In those old houses, attic stairs appeared from the ceiling with the pull of a drawstring. Hallway linen closets opened to reveal a Japanese fan tucked between the pillow cases, or a cigar box filled with faded greeting cards and dried-up fountain pens, or maybe a coffee percolator shaped like a Buck Rogers rocket.

The floors sloped, making marble games more interesting. Basements had dark crawlspaces, where lurked every manner of villain, from Jesse James to Long John Silver to Shere Khan. (If you’ve ever wondered, Roy Rogers can outdraw Captain Hook, for obvious reasons.)

Back then, every home had a windowed porch or some other enclave where we could collect our treasures and play. We made up games with our siblings and cousins. A coffee percolator became an interstellar space craft. Thimbles from the sewing box were landing ships. Japanese fans created hurricanes and tsunamis and an empty cigar box was a pretty convincing underground bunker. Marbles were fallen rocks on a treacherous canyon pass.

Those comfortable old houses provided the setting. They were often a little crooked, with additions tacked on here and there, but that meant they were filled with secret hideouts and unexplored spaces that fueled our imagination.

Could we have traveled to Narnia without a musty wardrobe tucked away in some dark upstairs room? Could we have experienced as deeply the power of love and acceptance without visiting a gothic mansion that contained a Secret Garden? I think not.

Would I have enjoyed that doll stroller half as much, had I been able to grab it from a first-floor toy room any time I wanted? Nope. Retrieving it from an upstairs cupboard that felt like Treasure Island, with the help of my aunt, was half the adventure.

I’m all for open concept design, but I still feel nostalgic about those old homes that I knew. Even with their flaws, they were perfect.