Tag Archives: home

Address

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Address: (n.) the particulars of the place where someone lives or where an organization is situated.

150 Letts Avenue.

That was my first address. It’s where I grew up. We were a family of seven living in a two-bedroom house that was less than twelve hundred square feet. In most cases, that would qualify us for subsisting in the third world.

But in Sunbury, Ohio, it was my home. And when you’re a kid, you don’t spend a lot of time considering social status, closet space or the particular drape of a curtain. You just get by.

If you do it right, you spend more time outside, where the square footage is only limited to the amount of panting you can tolerate following a sprint.

My friends had bigger houses–what you might call a “better address.” Interesting phrasing. They also lived on Letts Avenue, but their parcel of land yielded more prosperity. But we didn’t look down on each other–at least, I don’t think so. There may have been parents in the neighborhood who told their kids not to play with me because I was “Little House Johnny,” but I was not aware of the slight.

Since then I’ve had many addresses. Big, small, bathtubs, showers, dishwashers… even swimming pools.

Presently I don’t have a home address because I’m traveling. This causes some folks to shake their heads and smirk as they comment on my “gypsy lifestyle.” But all in all, home is where you hang your hat. At least, that’s what they say.

But if you can’t afford a hat, I guess home is just where you hang.

As I look back on it, I had great fun on Letts Avenue. Even though all the moms and dads were concerned about money and prestige, the kids were concerned about snacks and play. Maybe that’s what happened to me. Maybe I never grew up.

Because I am certainly, to this day, more concerned … about playing and snacking.

 

Access Road

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Access road: (n) a road giving access to a place or to another road.

About ten years ago I purchased a home perched on top of a hill.

It was very beautiful–but quite difficult to climb when it was time to settle in for the night. It was more suited for a mountain goat than an out-of-shape Pillsbury dough-boy such as myself.

So almost immediately I noticed that there was a space between the tree and the bushes in the front yard where my car could fit through, propelling me up the grade to the front door of the house, where I could walk in like a normal person. Understand–there was no actual driveway there, and I’m sure when the next-door-neighbors saw that I was driving across the front lawn to acquire entrance to my home, and were a bit perplexed, if not amused.

But I didn’t care.  I required access so I made a road.

As I travel, I often find an exit on the freeway preceded by a series of tire tracks, where someone has discovered that it was unnecessary to go all the way to the exit, because a quicker journey could be made across the median to the awaiting highway. They had created their own access road.

We have access roads for everything. In a sense, we even have access roads in life for the truth. If we can find a better exit from our dilemma other a total revelation of the facts, we will certainly hasten to escape the main drag and scurry off to safety.

So I’m not quite sure what access roads possess in the way of righteousness. They are more or less short cuts that human beings take to get from one place to another, often with little regard for maps and signs.

To try to eliminate them totally, or legislate them out of existence, would prove to be unfruitful.

Yet to believe that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line that I create may be the definition of pride and presumption.