The Inez House Pocket Door

When you were a baby, someone held you a looked into your eyes with love. Maybe it was your mom, or you dad. Maybe it was the nurse at the hospital. Or perhaps for you, it was someone else entirely different. They held you, knowing you were full of potential and choices. They cooed at you, telling you the mundane, or explaining the extraordinary.

This story is about one of the people in my life who looked at me with great love: my Granddad Raver.

He was born in 1912 in Nebraska. He came of age in the Great Depression and World War II. Remarking back on his childhood, he used to say, "I must've been cold and hungry at some point, I just don't remember it. Maybe that's what 11 brothers and sisters are for."

Granddad Raver was 37 when my dad was born, and 65 when I was born. One foot in the Victorian period, he did not develop a conscious interest in better communication, unconditional love, or learning to develop children's curiosity and confidence. Those were things for younger generations.

He had exactly one game he played with us as kids. I assume he made it up himself. He had a giant, black vinyl chair in the living room, positioned to see both the TV and the front door. During the commercial for Judge Wapner, he would get up from his chair.

With a twinkle in his eye, he would announce to the room, "I sure hope nobody sit in my chair while I'm gone." He would leave the room and I would dash over to his chair, climb in, and wait patiently. When he returned, he would pretend not to see me and sit on me, complaining about his lumpy chair.

I thought it was the greatest game ever!

And of course, he showed me his dentures one time. That was pretty wonderful.

We lived in Texas growing up, and he lived in Albuquerque, so we saw each other once or twice a year, at most. He lived in a house on Inez Street, walking distance to the library and the Furr's, where we would share banana splits. But that's a story for another day.

Between the street and the front door, you had to walk through a corridor of evergreens, probably juniper. I remember the strong scent.

One of the first things we did upon arrival was go to the pocket door between the kitchen and the dining room. Granddad Raver would flip open the little metal latch on the end of the door, pulling the pocket door open and revealing a paper height chart. Each grandchild would stand, back against the pocket door, and he would mark with a pencil their height, labeling the line with a name and usually a date or an age.

Even after we had been there a few days, and the newness of the pocket door had worn off, I remember flipping up the latch myself, and pulling out the pocket door. With my finger, I would trace the previous measurements of myself, the other grandkids, and even my dad, uncle, and aunt.