17 Home 2 – Navajo Drive

Home2 Navajo Drive

After my grandmother’s death, my mother and her brother sold the old Crestway Drive home, and she bought a duplex at 3618 Navajo Drive in South Brainerd, near Interstate 75 highway about two road miles from her brother’s house in Belvoir.

This house was on a steep hill, with a cul-de-sac road above it, at the top.  There were two evergreens, probably former Christmas trees, planted in the front yard, with stone retaining walls above the downhill neighbor’s property, on Navajo, and the hill beside and above, on the cul-de-sac.

As I said, the house was a duplex; my mother lived in the upper half, and fondly planned to rent the lower half (this seldom worked out, as my older sister, who had two Siamese cats and a large dog, needed a place to live); there was a staired hall between the two.   Both apartments were bright with awning windows all around, as befits a house on a hillside.  By the front door there was a large living room; this abutted the kitchen, and there was a hallway with a bedroom at each end and a bathroom between.

The back yard, where my mother tried to have a garden, and where my sister’s dog lived, was on a hillside, as the reader might guess.   The basement was a crawl space, mainly dug out below the lower apartment with a crude, low door; it housed a warm air furnace and water heater that served both apartments; my workbench and tools were also there.

The living room upstairs had a large picture window overlooking the side yard in back and the lower apartment; this room was dominated by her console TV, and her Sylvania phonograph unit, with integral AM/FM radio and record storage.  Her walnut veneer dining table, scenic painting that I bought for her one Christmas with my girl cousin, her cherry buffet and (non)matching hutch, and large corner desk, which was cluttered with her paperwork (I got all, minus the clutter – I had my own).  Once I used the corner where the dining table stood, to lovingly assemble my motorcycle after having had its tank and fenders painted “Regal Burgundy Metallic” at a Buick dealer on Brainerd Road; she mildly complained when the greasy bike soiled her grey carpet; I was careful not to tear the hall carpet when I had her help me take the assembled 400 pound bike downstairs to her carport!

My mother’s kitchen was small but efficient, and had her refrigerator and electric range on a windowless wall, with her Disposall sink and countertop on the front wall, overlooking the carport.  The cabinet wrapped around the corner with a “Lazy Susan” shelf; the drawer there was always bumping its neighbor, and I thought it impossible!  Under the sink was her “catch-all” drawer, where she kept miscellaneous hardware and tools in a jumbled clutter.

At one end of the hall, the uphill bedroom was my mother’s, where she had my oak college twin bed and her father’s dresser and a rocking chair.

The bathroom was tiled, with a long vanity/cabinet where she kept her linens.

The other bedroom, and over the carport, had a large built-in bookshelf beside the closet, with the kitchen on the other side of the wall.  In this room I slept when I was there, in a double bed (formerly my sister’s) that I cut the feet off because it was too high for kneeling.

The carport had a lower paved area that accommodated two cars, and an elevated walk that held her mower and paraphernalia.  A short asphalt driveway reaching the street provided additional parking.

In December 1978 my mother called with the sad news that my sister had died in Albany GA, where she had a job with the navy supply department, and where her daughter was majoring in music (like her mother, she was accomplished in voice and violin) at the University of Georgia.  My sister was found by her daughter, who had just come from school.  The body was donated to a medical school, probably Emory; my mother and her brother “adopted” the forlorn young woman, and undertook her care after her mother’s death—our mother relocated to Albany until the girl graduated.  After completing her undergraduate education, this daughter went on to further school at the University of Tennessee in Nashville, where she obtained a Master’s degree in veterinary medicine.  She then married and moved with her husband, also a veterinarian, to his home area in Pennsylvania, where they raised several children and worked in a few churches.

My mother was a member of the Religious Society of Friends (“Quakers”), which sometimes met in her home, and owned a property on Crestway Drive.  This group included a long-time friend and her Czech husband, an astronomer; they gave me and my bride a nice vase, of “Blue Mountain Pottery”, for a wedding gift.

One day in 1986 I received a call from my uncle that my mother had died at home; he had come for a daily visit (she often called him “the best brother anyone could have”), and found her body in the bathroom.  The cause of her death was determined to be rectal hemorrhage.  Her Friends church held a funeral for her, but I didn’t attend, on some lame excuse of being needed at work (which my boss must have thought odd).  I couldn’t handle my mother’s death, and didn’t want to face her friends.  Later I took my daughters to her home to get her car and a few things.  She had donated her body to the medical school at Emory; her house was sold by her brother, and after the Coldwell Banker realtor’s commission (his friend from St Andrew’s) I received my share of the proceeds (which I “invested” in a banking stock recommended by John through a friend – beginning a legend).