Places I Love

I spent my childhood growing up in these houses and on the lakefront in Mandeville. The first and fourth pictures are of my grandmother’s house, one in the daylight and one at night. It had an elevator with access all the way up to the attic, where Miles and I got stuck one day and my dad had to come get us down through an opening in the kitchen ceiling. The second house was where my family lived. It started out small and my parents had it moved from one end of the lakefront to another, where they restored it. Both of these houses are on the National Register of Historic Places. The third picture is of my mom’s aunt’s house, where we had many family gatherings. It was right next door to a school that had a yearly fair where I would win multiple cakes in the cake walk. Good thing Mamere’s house was right next door to drop off the cakes. The crushing thing is that all of these houses have been sold. My grandmother’s had to be sold so that my parents could pay the inheritance taxes for inheriting it. Out family home was sold after we moved to Taos and it proved daunting to keep up a house in an area that is often hit with hurricanes. But I must admit, I felt very sentimental about them this past week.