His Yard

     

  

  It's fun to go onto the internet and search for notable events that happen on a particular day.  Today, in 1921, my father, Laurence Bragan Langton, was born in Richmond, Virginia. Had he lived beyond his 86 years, he'd be 102 today. In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his iconic, I Have a Dream speech today. I yoke this event with Dad's life because after World War II, he was living one version of the postwar American Dream. I was in my thirties when I wrote this descriptive essay about him in 1985; I hope you enjoy it.

His Yard

One Dexter Ave., Waltham, Mass. No zip codes then; operators still asked, Number, please; and mail got delivered twice a day to the monumental scale, four-apartment, wood-frame house where I grew up.  It was through these daily mails that Dad received his Popular Mechanics along with a jumble of other periodicals of the do-it-yourself genre —unpretentious perpetrators of good old-fashioned American self-reliance. It would be lightyears before Emersonian concepts would stimulate my sensibilities. I was a kid in the early fifties and life was but a dream. 

    Dad was the landlord. The term rolled off our tongues with the ease and arrogance characteristic of those who are to the Manor born. For him, the fascination was not the prestigious title we banned about around the block, but the fact that the house had potential. Bought with the help of a VA loan earned through his stint as an aviator in the war, the place needed work. A jack-of-all-trades had met his nirvana. We lived in a handy-man’s special.

    He tackled the outside first. There were no clothes dryers then, my baby brother and his diapers were on the way, so grass to replace the rock-hard, rutted mess under the clothes lie was a priority. Like a primitive tribe, marveling over their first glimpse of modern civilization, he captivated my sisters and our friends with the mud-smeared, orange-brown metal drum which he rolled slowly to tamp down his newly planted seeds. With equally mystified eyes we watched him blanket the ground with the unlikely cover of summer screens. Watched as he transformed the sheet he’d put us to the tag of shredding, into taut orderly rows of string, trailing funny white cotton flags to ward off the unwelcome hunger of the sharp-eyed, ever-present New England sparrow. My daily peeks through the darkness of the wire mesh would become my initial experience of the painstakingly slow process of growth. And there is the indelible picture of my mother —slim, young, apron over pedal-pushers, hanging endless lines of clothes. My brother, Larry at her feet, his grubby fist snatching at clubs of fresh-grown, spring-green grass.

Though I followed closely the progress of this part of the yard, how the play area came into existence was a different matter. It was as if after the backdoor banged behind us one day, we walked out into a yard that had been transformed magically into a fully equipped playground. He had jig-sawed out a flaming red hobby-horse complete with rope mane, piercing eyes and a flowing tail. There was a sandbox filled to overflowing next to an ingeniously constructed combination of a see-saw with a trick-bar set in the middle for hanging. His masterpiece was a majestic post and lintel construction which supported two large swings that had a span which reflected his flier’s taste for heights. Dad always scoffed at the pre-assembled, painted-aluminum, store-bought variety. You don’t even get off the ground with one of those silly things. He settled himself, muscular and strong onto the freshly painted plank. If it holds me, he assured us, a dozen of you can swing, all at the same time. 

    And, that’s really about how it was. Our yard had the force of a magnet for our friends. If you played in it you were privy to an exclusive set of games. Going to the moon meant you touched your toe to the railing of the second-floor porch. It was always more fun when someone was in the other swing. The challenge of being first made the getting there all the more delicious. Double-decker pudding was my favorite. One person stood up straddling the seated person’s lap and together we’d become giddy with the excitement over the power behind our combined strengths. Mars remained a game for our imaginations. Any attempt to swing high enough to reach the roofline of our enormous house was thwarted by the length of even our Dad’s swing. There was never any doubt in our minds though, that given some added height and breadth, this feat was a distinct possibility. Dad assured us of that. 

    He had divided the huge yard into thirds, and after completing the first two sections, he threw himself into the designing and building of what, until today, we all still refer to as The New Yard. I know now that the days he spent planning, measuring and executing the scope of his next project, would have been days ignited by the whirl of creative energy.  Inside the green picket-fenced area, around an oversized stretch of picnic table, he strategically arranged an old sink and antique, wood-stove. With field-stones and mortar, he sculpted rock enclosures around the vintage equipment rendering them artfully protected, ensconced, and at home outside in the elements. This area is where parties for friends, and the large, rollicking Irish family he’d married into were given with ease. Cabinets above and below the old, white-porcelain sink housed extra pots and pans and plastic party-ware. Water to fill their enormous granite-ware corn and lobster pots were available with the twist of a wrist. 

   I have a collection of images from the parties my parent’s had on Dexter Ave: the fun we had fishing frosted, green bottles of Pabst and Carling Red Label for the grownups out of the field-stone, wishing-well Dad had tucked in a far corner; the way the smoke curled out of the chimney I’d seen him fashion carefully with stones; sore fingers from attacking slippery lobsters. But most of all, I remember the laughter that would combust throughout those long summer evenings — because of the energy that flowed from Dad’s hard-working soul.  

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Laughter would combust!