Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The LaRue's House

This is the LaRue's house. It burned down two Saturdays ago. It makes me sad.
Now, I hardly think it matters that "the LaRue's" moved out of this house 21 years ago. It will ALWAYS be "the LaRue's" house to me. See, Andrea and Tara were two of my best friends growing up. More Andrea, as she was my age, but Tara was also my friend. They lived in this house, on the corner of Vine, almost directly behind my house. I have such fond memories of this house, of my friends who lived there, etc. I mean, this house was cool, under Tara and Andreas bunkbed (I believe their Dad built them) there was a secret compartment. You could totally move the little door and hide down in there. I'm fairly sure it was built to put like food storage or something, but none the less, no one had a built in hiding place under their bed like this. Their younger sister also had bunk beds in her room, and that was always fascinating to me. In their older sisters room, there was a bathroom IN the room. People, that was unheard of then, noone but like parents rooms had bathrooms in the room. They also had a really cool utility room in the back that was their laundry, but also had a place for their mom to do hair, and off from that was a little office, and their Dad always had TONS of the old fashioned computer paper in there. This was the house that 2 days before school pictures in 3rd grade, I was swinging on their swing and I flipped off and face planted in teh dirt. I have a pretty awesome shiner in my pics to prove it. When they built their pool, Andrea and I decided one HOT summer day to slather ourselves in baby oil and basically crisp ourselves in teh sun. For the record, we were quite successful at the crisping. OUCH! In this house, their oldest sisters water broke, right at the kitchen table. Also, in their kitchen, they had a totally cool "old fashioned" phone, and a slammin vinyl green dinette set. In that kitchen, Tara taught me the greatness that is sour cream in chile beans. In this house, I learned the "value" of CBS soaps. I mean, the LaRue's got me hooked in Guiding Light and As the Wrold Turns for goodness sake. hahahaha I also remember a funky shaped bathtub in the hall bath, and it was green. I remember the great re-decoration of 1980something. Sharon always had a lovely home, and when dusty rose and country blue were in, you better believe her whole house was done up in it. It wasn't too long after they did all this lovely redecorating that they decided to move. They designed their own home and moved out to East Mesa, with all the smart people and took my friends with them. We've always stayed in touch, and remain friends to this day, but I still miss "the LaRue's" and their house. So, sad days, goodbye forever you old house. Thanks for the good times and the good memories, may they last forever.

And thus ends my entry of the house that burned down.

Maggie is awake and mad at me for not getting there sooner.

2 comments:

Andrea said...

What a nice tribute to my house. It was a neat house, I still have dreams when I am in that house. It made me really sad when Torie came home last Saturday and said our house burned down. I wish I had all the storage and neat "hiding" places in my house now. Great memories. Thanks!

Tara L. Stradling said...

Wow - you remember things I totally forgot about. Brought tears to my eyes to see this. Thanks Allyson. Love you friend, even if you WERE Andrea's friend more... (wink)