Crittenden House and the Time Capsule

Crittenden House and the Time Capsule

     When I first saw Crittenden House, she was a mess. Not just a regular type messy house; she was a living, breathless royal nightmare of a mess. I say breathless because one could not really stand to breathe inside that house. Those first associations with this house affected me in such a way that, until this day, I could never eat anything inside that house. But today, as Crittenden house is in the throes of its last days, I ate. Two peanut butter sandwiches, kept tightly sealed until they entered my mouth. So, today, I made things right between Crittenden House and myself, and gave her the respect she has deserved, during the twenty some odd year association we have had. Crittenden house has a date with a bulldozer, right after the first of the year. I sold her, awhile back. On a handshake. Keeps down the paper work. Jimmy Bolt, our best city manager, to my way of thinking, during our thirty year tenure in Arkadelphia, was my partner in this deal. Now, don’t get the idea that I normally buy and sell a house on a handshake. But Jimmy Bolt and I have a long history. We were both country hicks together out in the woods west of town in the 1980’s. We were so close, my dog once raided his henhouse, and caught a bullet in the foot for his efforts. Not by Jimmy, but from one of the several neighborhood kids, and we had several. None ever openly admitted it, to the best of my memory.  But it worked; to my knowledge, my dog, Booker Brand New, never went near his henhouse again.

     You see, Crittenden house sits right across the road from Jimmy Bolt’s office window, and Crittenden house had long ago lived out her best years when I bought her. She’s just plain ugly. Sorry, Crittenden House, but it’s time for me to admit what the rest of Arkadelphia has talked about as long as I’ve known her. According to my recent research, she went on the tax records in 1910. I knew fifteen years ago the city of Arkadelphia would one day own her, and remove her. The big surprise was, It  took so long.  I passed up an offer twice what I sold it for, finally, around twelve years ago, waiting for Arkadelphia to bring a fine point pen to the negotiating table, and maybe buy the property by the square foot, which also means through the nose. But alas! I finally had to threaten to sell, OWNER FINANCING written plainly on my little For Sale sign, which could have given Crittenden house a new lease on life for thirty more years of being the blight of downtown Arkadelphia. Should have tried that years ago.  Gives you some sort of idea the kind of businessman I am. But that’s another story.

     But I digress. Being overcome by sentimentality, I have wandered off. Let’s get back to my first introduction to Crittenden House.  The relator, I forgot which one, could find nobody in Arkadelphia willing to enter the house to clean, no matter what they offered. But that brought the house down to $14,000. It IS a duplex, and all I could see was, if I can just get through the initial cleanup, spend a few weeks bringing her up a few notches, It would bring me in $560 a month, the renters will pay it off in a few years, and the rest just will be gravy. (ugh! Did I just mention food?)

     I put on a mask and rubber gloves. Sometime into the second day, I started cleaning off the counter and the stove. Skuttlebutt had it, the last renter, who made that mess, was being chased by the law, and had to leave in a big hurry. When I finally reached the bottom of the mess on the stove, I discovered part of the problem with the smell.  Pork chops were cooking on the stove, it must have been quickly turned off after they were brown, or maybe, time did that. Weeks passed before I bought the house.

     I've had a lot of on the job training with messes. My agreement with Barbara has always been, she does more house cleaning of the normal variety than I do, but when the really bad messes occur, I clean them up. Fortunately, both our kids were past the diaper stage before I would go along with that. You remember washing out all those old, cloth type diapers? Nuf’ said. I’ve never understood how a family member can get a bad stomach bug, be kneeling right over the commode when the time comes, yet throw it all over the bathroom; never a drop hitting the commode.

     After I finally chased out the smell, a lot of elbow grease (ugh!) putting a hanging picture or shelf over various holes in the wall, and a lot of paint did the job. Crittenden house was smiling again. And she started paying off her mortgage note. Things were looking up, for this old gal, even if she was reaching 83.

     The Tornado of 97’, bad as it was, actually gave Crittenden House an image boost in the neighborhood. In seconds, it went from being the worst house in the area, to being one of the best. Nobody was in it at the time. Houses across the street were flattened to the ground. One apartment was rented, his stuff was still there. We never found him, and he never showed back up. I wondered if he had become a victim, but further inquiries told me he also left in a big rush, also being chased by the law, a day or two before the tornado.

     Insurance adjusters hit the town in droves a couple of days later. Before I knew they had even looked at Crittenden house, my agent was presenting me with a check for the total loss of the house. I protested. “The contractor says it can be repaired.” “ But for the amount of the policy?” he said. “Well, I don’t know. I haven’t gotten an estimate yet.” Then, realizing I was talking against myself, which goes back to the kind of businessman I am, I shut up and gratefully accepted the check. My banker laughed when I told him that. “If he had seen that picture I have down at the bank, showing what it looked like before the tornado, you would have never gotten a dime!”

      I decided to repair it myself. I put on six squares of shingles. One day while I sat on that roof, getting a bird’s eye view of the destruction, I just sat there a long time. FEMA was doing a great job, but the town still had a pink cast to it from all the insulation strewn around. That wonderful little lady was pulling her little red wagon up the street with cold water for all the workers. She had been doing that for days. I never knew her. I wish I did. I’d just like to thank her. I sat there and bawled like a baby for my town.

 Continued in four days. thanks for reading!