The neighborhood and the homestead evolve ...

Within a few short years, our little neighborhood starting filling out and looking settled in.  Lawns had grown in lush and dense, and trees and bushes were filling out and making homes look more established.   We watered frequently as needed.  The Edwards Aquifer had not yet been depleted and water was cheap and plentiful.  Water bills ran less than $5 a month.  In this era, ligustrums were often planted at the corners of homes.  They were meant to be kept trimmed back as attractive shrubbery, but ours grew into enormous towering trees.

 

As to be expected, we were pretty quickly outgrowing our house.  With a bank loan, my parents added a 200 square foot bedroom on the back of the house for themselves so Wes and I could occupy the original two bedrooms.  They also closed the carport in and made a garage.  Every room in the house got new furniture and the hardwood oak floors were refinished.  Mr. Abel was our contractor and he lived just down the way on Rittiman Road.  During the construction phase, we would pick him up many evenings and drive to the downtown Sears and Roebuck and purchase building materials with his guidance.  We also spent time in the Sears furniture department and the Jorrie’s furniture store on Fredericksburg Road by Wonderland Mall.

While the hardwood floors were being resanded, we had to move out of the house for about four days.  We piled all furniture and belongings onto the carport and rented the cheapest hotel room we could find on the Austin Highway.  It was a great adventure for Wes and I.  We ate out at Wyatt's Cafeteria every evening, and went on to the hotel room.  We had carefully chosen the school clothes we needed for our little "trip."  All of our belongings stayed safely on the carport until we were ready to move back in.

 

My parents’ new bedroom opened directly into the kitchen, which was a bit bizarre, but we quickly grew used to it.  Two sides of the new back room were solid windows.  It was a bright and cheery place with a red linoleum tile floor and knotted pine paneling which gave us much pride.  We continued to be very comfortable in our little house.

The neighborhood continued to be well kept for the most part, but many of the homes were becoming rental properties.  They had served as starter homes for young families who were moving up and on.  Being a good value, many of those families kept their first homes as rental properties.  The house next door to us became one of them.  Most of the renters were delightful, just honest working class families saving and trying to get ahead so they could purchase their first homes too.  Many of the renters were young military families waiting to get into the cheaper base housing.  

There was only one bad family.   Wes was walking Skippy around the side of the house late one night to put him in the back yard (rather than take him through my parents’ bedroom) and to his horror, the neighbor was sitting in plain view of the side window, butt naked and typing.  It was a sight he never forgot as much as he would have liked to.