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then making photographic prints. He even purchased an enlarger with which
he would make huge prints of some of his better landscape photographs. He
spent so much time there that we often had great difficulty getting him to
join us for meals. I can remember, so often, calling, "Daddy, it is time to eat!”
He would invariably reply, "Just one minute!” Of course, one minute
stretched to five, then ten. One of us would run back upstairs and repeat the
cry, “Daddy, it is time to eat!” We would never start without him so we just
waited. Eventually, he would come down to eat.
My father and mother had the large and long master bedroom along the side
of the house with the two porches. This master bedroom was indeed
strange; it had five doors entering it. There was a door at the center of the
room; it led to the hallway that connected all the rooms to the stairways.
Edda and I both had doors from our rooms into the master bedroom and
there were French doors at either end of the master bedroom. I do not see
how anybody could get any privacy in a master bedroom like that!
Edda and I each had our own bedroom connected by a long, center hallway.
Between our bedrooms were the master bathroom, the stairway to the first
floor and the stairway up to the roof. We each had a sink in our room, to
brush our teeth and comb our hair, I suppose. We each had our own closet,
which I had to check and double check every night before I went to bed to
ensure there was nothing hiding in it. I even checked the stairway to the roof
out every night, just to ensure there was nothing hiding there and that the
door to the roof was securely locked! It took all the courage I could muster to
walk up those stairs. I knew that if I did not, I would not be able to get to
sleep! An obsession? You bet!
Elaine had no bedroom of her own. There was the piano room downstairs
that could be used as another bedroom, but none of us would have dared to
stay down there by ourselves at night! There was the one unused porch
upstairs that could have been used as a bedroom, but it was open to the
elements on two sides and could get quite cool at night. Therefore, Elaine
would bunk in with Edda for a while, and then she would move her bed and
stuff to my room and share that with me for a while.
The entire house had floors covered in ceramic tile. Oh, were they wonderful!
In the evenings when we remained upstairs, we would don our roller skates
and zoom from one room to the next at top speed. We had a regular roller
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