Ode to my home

There was an old building in an old town many years ago. It was built in the typical style of the age with thick glass windows and a tall steeple with a bell that rang loudly throughout the valley. It was a white building with one large door through which one could enter and exit. Inside were wooden pews, a wooden pulpit, wood floors and walls as was the style of the day. By todays standards we would consider that style, basic, old fashioned, boring however, in that day, it was beautiful. Its average sized bell in the tall steeple called perishers to it's doors with its chime, called students to the classroom, made announcements for lunch breaks in the field, it was well worn and well beloved. Sadly, by the time our church bought that beautiful building in 1992 the bell had long ago fallen into disrepair and was removed from it's steeple. The steeple now teemed with hundreds of bats native to the Great North West, for at one time it was considered "Great".

I was around seven years old when I first gazed up at that tall steeple in wonder. The white paint was chipped, the guano covered original wood floors once shiny and beautiful now buckled in various places, thousands of scratches marred its surface. The old windows looked more like fun house mirrors, the images on the other side weathered and distorted by time. Someone at some time had added a mechanics garage in the back of the old church building with stairs that came down from the long stage to a back room, up the long steps was the offices and classrooms, down was that mechanics garage and small rest rooms one for men and one for women, single use. The addition of the offices and garage made the building quite a bit larger. On the wall end of the garage was another set of stairs that led to a large basement with a huge country style kitchen where one could host dinners and parties and inside that room was a furnace room where the large, loud, producer of heat resided. The heat was forced through ducts that led to large, square grates in the floor of the main auditorium.

Our small church, proud of its new acquisition got to work immediately on repairs to give the old building a new life. We painted, carpeted, added a nursery in the mechanics garage, floored, replaced windows with accents of stained glass, added a sound booth and new chairs.
In the parking lot standing tall was an old Maple Tree, it was older than the building itself which even then was nearly 100 years old. We used to play around its trunk, catch tree frogs, have all day potlucks under its expansive shade. Adults sat, talked, sang, enjoyed sweet fellowship while we kids ran like screaming banshees looking for mischief and having the time of our lives. Over the years many many repairs and additions were made to that property, it became home to our small group and we loved it.
The property also held a parsonage that was attached to the old church through an underground tunnel, the top of which could be seen above ground and was often played on by the children. It also housed four old portable buildings held up by cinder blocks on top of a well. Kids played hide and seek under the buildings undaunted by the thought that they could fall or we could be hurt in any way. Inside the portables was storage and one had a classroom where we attended our 5-day a week school taught by the Pastors wife for elementary and another lady for high school grades. Behind was the well and beyond that was a dip that led to a large wooded area where we, as children, carefully constructed our fort made out of mud and dirt where we often played and we often told not to play.

My family, at one time, hit a very rough patch, my dad had been laid off from his job with Boise Cascade and we became homeless. We were permitted to live in the large church basement until we were back on our feet and when we were we were given the recently vacated old parsonage to live in. We lived happy years in the old, worn down, house. It was three stories, the main floor had a large country eat-in kitchen with original cabinets and counters, it always smelled of old wood and cleaners. The living room was the typical style of the 1950s when it was built, it had a large picture window that overlooked the 2-lane road outside and brown carpet, white walls, we spent very little time in that room, it was more of an entertaining room. The main level also had a full bathroom and 2 bedrooms, one of which was the master. Up in the attic were 2 more bedrooms connected by a shared closet and a bathroom and the basement had another storage room, the furnace area then a large living area which was our main living room and where we spent most of our time watching movies, playing with toys and being with our friends. It smelled always of moisture and age, like that room was timeless. It also connected to the tunnel that led to the church basement.

We became caretakers of the property. Whenever we got visitors we were among the first to greet them and make sure they were settled into the visitor apartment created in one of the portables. After long sermons on summer nights my friends and I would go outside into the night sky and play never ending games of tag in the graveled parking lot, there were only 2 lights, one over the carport next to the house and one in the parking area but we did not mind. Back then kids were smart enough to stay away from moving cars but we were not smart enough to keep them from moving in the first place. Yes, we played in all of the cars in the parking lot and one time made my dads 1970s Dodge van roll right into the neighbors yard! Boy, did we get into trouble, worth every second because the hilarity of watching all my friends jump out the slide door and I tried to stop the old van made the trouble worth while.

Many many years on that property, I grew up there, we all did. All of our best memories together were there. We said goodbye when I was 12 or 13, I remember looking up at the new roof from on top of one of the logs that lined the garden on the south side of the building and shedding tears because I was so in love with my home that was being sold. The church, the new Pastor, felt it was time to move on, we kids, not so much. As I grew older I would very often drive by the old 100yr old building and long to walk in and smell the old wood and if I had it to do over I would have purchased that property when it came up for sale again a number of years ago for $124,000.
The polite word for the man who purchased the property is "collector" The actual word is "hoarder" My beloved home fell into disrepair, it was crumbling, unkept, unloved, and on July 5, 2021 some careless kids drove up to it and shot roman candles at it and the old building burned. Not just the church building but also the old house and out buildings. Firefighters couldn't reach the flames due to all of the clutter on the property. As far as I know the kids haven't been caught and even if they were, what was to be done? You can't just rebuild a piece of town history, once history is destroyed its gone forever.

I cried once again while looking up the date of the fire that destroyed my home, I still refer to it as my home. While the land is still there, the buildings that made it home are gone. I don't think about the people I grew up with often anymore. We all went our separate ways a long time ago but every now and then I try to look someone up on Facebook and think about what they are doing at that very moment. Some have passed away due to various reasons some old and some still young. Some, like me, have moved to different places. Do they still remember the old church building in Battle Ground, Washington?

Some might read this and think, its just an old building, why do you care so much? Have you ever lost something you loved so much that you would give almost anything to have it back in your life? That is how I feel about my past. I am 41 years old, I have a husband, I have 4 beautiful children, a job I enjoy, a wonderful church family, a beautiful little farm house in a tiny rural town in the middle of nowhere but I am also very lonely, getting older and longing for those days of unbridled joy. I will never see my home on this earth again, the place that formed me, that made me who I am, all the good and the bad, the home I loved, filled with people I loved is gone. Watching the security footage and photos taken by fire fighters at the scene I felt and still feel a huge sense of loss, like my hearts been ripped from my chest and smashed. Its been nearly four years of trying to not hate the man with the stuff and not hate the kids with the fireworks. If they only knew how much someone loved that little piece of country property on that hill in that county would it have made a difference?
I would have purchased that land before him if I could but I couldn't do anything with it, it would have continued to die until someone had set it on fire then I would have had to stand there, safe across the street and watch it burn anyway.

What is it that you love, what object in your life means that much to you? We all have something in our past or our present that if lost we would grieve over. I am not talking about people, I am talking about memories. It is foolish to attach yourself to object however as humans we are tactile, objects is how we connect ourselves to people and its people who have eternal value. I am obsessed over my memories, it took me a long time to let go of the people who chose to leave me, it will take me just as long to let go of my home made from sticks and bricks.
So, Old Cherry Grove Friends Church, built in 1910 and eventually reborn into Open Door Baptist Church for a long time beloved by everyone who graced her doors,
Thanks for the Memories.