The Fargo Finish

November 20, 2009 the Fargo Forum stopped coming to our Velva mailbox; exactly one week after the closing of the Fargo house. More explicitly defined: the Fargo house was the home of my childhood, the grandma home of my children and the home where my parents lived out the best years of their lives. They are no longer living so they can't argue with me about the last comment, but I think they would agree, those days at 1514 were good.

They bought the house in the Beuland (spelling?) Addition back in the glorious fifties, 1957 to be exact. It was on the south edge of town and had a unique feature that for years I would be able to use as a landmark in describing where I lived: "It is the street with the evergreens growing on each and every boulevard." My father always hated those trees because they created a blind spot at every driveway. He was sure some kid was going to get run over. He did replace them (after an unconfirmed report of a late night booze induced chopping,in the old days my dad had a wild side to him!) with - guess what? Evergreens.

The ranch style house was never a stepping stone for bigger and better, despite my valiant efforts in later years. "Upgrade, come on let's loose this bungalow," may not have been verbatim from Miss Mimi but I'm sure I spit forth something equally as forceful. Fargo was growing and so was the square footage, but not at our house. My parents were content with what they had and were not ones to go deep in debt for a new look.

In discussing the house with my brother we aren't sure what the house was actually bought for, the purchase price. We wavered between $14,000.00 and $20,000.00. We sold it for $134,000.00 - not a bad chunk of change after all these years. It went to a couple who really wanted the house, enough to bid up 3 times. I am happy for them, even though with the nature of today's young people I doubt they will live in the house for their entire adult lives, like the predecessors. People just don't do that anymore. Too many, "let's lose this bungalow's" out there. I may have been ahead of my time.

The house underwent several cosmetic changes, thanks to the skillful eye of Evie, but never any structural revamping, unless of course I count the new concrete patio and back door. In the 70's my Dad went ham wild. He was a virtuoso in the ham radio world receiving his telegraph operator's license as a teenager. We always had ham gear in the basement, but when he put up a tower in the back yard about four stories high, I knew he'd gone ham wild, a less rabid version of hog wild!

We had a finished basement which was quite characteristic of the Beuland homes. I secretly felt we were jipped because we didn't have an incinerator like the next-door neighbors. Instead we had a bar, complete with a sink. The basement was our play ground for years. Memory serves that I took over the whole area, gee, I wonder where Tom played? I had a school room set up on one side and a house on the other. I did move my classroom for a time into the laundry room because I was tired of not having a door. My crookedly sketched, pencil drawn intercom lever was still visible above the light switch on the knotty pine wall as I carried out the last of the the boxes. Do you suppose they will wonder what the art work is? We also left them the stalwart heavy duty pencil sharpener firmly screwed down just a few inches away. Maybe a little girl will someday see a future classroom among the ironing board, freezer and washing machine - just like I did.

On the main floor my bedroom was first down the hall followed by my brother's and after the turn, my folks' - next to the bathroom. It's odd how I can sit here, 250 miles away and years later and still hear the sound of the hall light clicking on, or the sound the bathroom door closing, the front awning whipping in the wind. I have visions, just as well etched into my memory, of my Dad sitting in his chair reading the paper with the TV a wee bit too loud; my mom at the kitchen sink; my brother lying on his bed reading and listening to music on the Green Goody, a stereo (green, really) he won.

So now it's final. The Snyders have ended their tour in Fargo (Mom and Dad are buried in Moorhead along with the souls of the Mattson clan - the Snyder souls are in Livingston, MT). My grandparents and young Billy Deane moved to the big city from Dickinson in about 1919. They soon bought the house on 14th street (another half century of dwelling - I guess moving isn't in the English/Czech gene pool) and in '29 a lake cottage on little Detroit, solidifying their entry into the Fargo family crowd. So ninety years later it's time to say good-bye to a great home and a great little city, but not the huge and colorful memories we Fargo folks have.