August 10, 1967 was the day I first entered this house. It was a foggy day. The slowness of the Quonset did not matter. It was all very exciting. I was a nine year old boy traveling with my two brothers, mother and my newly minted stepdad. It was his house on Block Island and we were going for the honeymoon. I suppose that a honeymoon with three boys is not really very romantic.
In 1949, Doctor Frank J Honan bought this house. He would come out every August for his vacation. He cut himself off from his practice totally. There was no phone at the house. He would say if we had one patients would call and say, “I know you are on vacation, BUT…” He loved BI. In his youth he spent a summer working out here. In the 50’s his four children stayed here and did the same things that I would do later. So much, would happen here in this house. Most of it good. Sometimes sad. More often happy. This house held all the things that life has in store for us.
In 1967, the Red Sox were in the heat of a pennant race. It was probably the exciting race ever in the history of baseball. I remember being glued to the game. Dad would listen on the radio to every game. On weekends the game was on television. The reception was poor. But he would sit, even on the sunniest of day, in his chair by the door and watch every inning. I would watch along for a while when we got home from the beach. Yes, I remember watching Jose Tartaball throw out Ken Berry at the plate in a crucial game against the White Sox!
Often I would sit at the Dining Room table and play Stratomatic Baseball in my pre-teen years. My brothers and I would play catch in the yard while waiting for dinner. We would run off and play in all the abandoned hotels and out building during the day. It was dangerous play, running through walls and jumping out windows onto piles of old mattresses we had place to land on. Sometime we played “baseball” by hitting rocks with sticks up against these building. I once had my head split open by a falling brick while climbing an old chimney. It was good to have a doctor in the house to fix me up. Eventually, they either tore down the buildings or fixed them up. I wish I was a photographer back then. They were beautiful relics.
At night we would go to the movies at the Empire Theater and get ice cream at Kings Spa. We were so close to town our parents would trust us to walk down by ourselves. Back then there were no crowds and only a handful of stores. It was a quiet sleepy town. It was a great place for kids to roam.
We slept in the back bedroom. There were two grey metal bunkbeds. There were thin yellow and dark blue striped mattresses. We each had a thin blue blanket and a rock hard pillow. At night we would lay awake in the dark as the summer fog would roll in and listen to the sounds of near and distant fog horns. Fog horns rarely blow anymore. Sleep would then pull us in and not release us until the sun came beaming in the room.
After dinner, Dad and Mom would insist that they do the dishes. It was by hand of course. They refused to let us kids do them. Dad would tell us how he was washing dishes at the New Royal Hotel in 1917.
Water was an issue back then. The town water was red with rust. We had to walk up to the Spring House water shed and fill up jugs of water from the pipe that sent fresh water into the ocean. Then we had to carry the heavy jugs back to the house.
Reading was always an important part of being in the house. On rainy days that was the main activity. On these days when there were people in the house I would read in my bed. Dad would bring out the past year’s supply of Readers Digest. The newspaper was a daily read. I always tried to snag the sports section first. I remember in the years after college when I stayed out here through the fall. I would spend the day photographing. Then come back to the Morris chair. There was a lamp right over it. I would sit in it for hours reading books.
There were several fall seasons that I lived in the house alone. I think that was my favorite time.
I did not live in the house for all Fifty-four years. There were times I lived in company housing. I stayed above Dead Eye Dicks, at the Narragansett, and at the Yellow Kittens for some seasons. I stayed next door with Bob Downie for several years in the eighties. But even at these times the house was still a center piece of life on Block Island. My step brothers and sister would come and stay for a week each until Dad retired in 1980. It was good to see them and their kids. Then August was the parents turn. That meant that I could find a home cooked meal almost any night.
I lived in the house in other years. I always use the middle bedroom. There was a peculiar thing about the floor plan of this house. The bathroom had two doors. It was only accessible by going through my bedroom or my parents’ bedroom. Fortunately, most of the time people in the house would go through my parents’ room at night.
There were parties at the house in the off season. I held a few rages. They were fun. I had a few relationships over the years that spent some time here. Enough said. My whole lifetime of friends came here to visit at one time or another.
I remember the daily ritual of coming home from the beach and having to go to the outside shower in the back before walking in the house. On washing day I had to duck under the clothes hanging on the line. In July, the bushes in back were full of pink roses.
Of course, there were many cookouts on the grill. It was the usual fare of hamburgers, hotdogs, ribs or steak with sweet corn and potato salad. Plenty of beer was consumed on that back porch. It was a family spot for conversation and relaxation. When we first arrived the view of the ocean was extensive. We could see Clay head, Mansion Beach, Old Harbor and off to the Southeast. We would use Dad’s binoculars to look at the passing ships. Newport was a big navy base back then and we love spotting the warships. Once the sewer plant was built neighbors wanted to block it from view. Trees were planted. Our back porch ocean view has been reduced by seventy percent in the last fifty years. The front porch was great for people watching, sitting in the rocking chairs, drinking wine as the sunset. Passersby often said hello. This is one of my favorite things about this house.
In this house my children would come to visit Grandma. We all stayed here one summer. They would attack the bowl of peanut M&Ms that sat by the front door. My mother was well known for her handing out of red liquorish and frozen pops. My kids enjoyed their visits to Grandma. The big event was the spaghetti and meatball dinners. We always had one for Fin’s July 3rd birthday. The Friday after Labor Day with Cousin Dennis, his wife Judy and other assorted people through the years would come. It was a tradition to prepare for the Run Around the Block. Sometimes my brother Bob would have it on his last day of July birthday. The Italian dinner tradition has been passed down to the point that my kids are now requesting it whenever we get together and it is our Christmas dinner. They are trying to learn the recipe now. But mostly, we remember sitting crowded around the small dining room table in the center of this house eating this most important meal.
On the night my wife and I told the kids we were separating, it was to this house the kids fled in pain. It was grandma that they came to see. It was a sad time. After that this house would be where I would stay when I came to the island. I slept in the middle bedroom again. In the last few years Bob would be here all summer with his wife Neda and three dogs. It was often chaotic.
In my mother’s late life, there was the morning race to the bathroom. If you did not get in before Mom was in getting ready for the day, you would have to hold it for at least an hour. Sometimes it would be even longer. It was her unintentional way of getting us out of bed and not wasting the day.
She would sit on the couch and read the paper, which she had to have every day. It was impossible to give her yesterday’s paper even when her dementia had gotten bad. She always knew.
She would fall asleep there in the corner of the living room. Her snoring was often loud. But don’t tell her she fell asleep. She would insist she was awake the whole time.
She always loved the visitors. Whether it was my children, cousins, in-laws, friends or other assorted people, Mom was always greeting them with a smile. I loved how my kids would sit with her as she told the same stories and asked the same questions over and over again. It made Mom happy. It was sad to see her get old. I think my kids learned a lot about life in this house.
I remember eating dinner on the back porch with her in July of 2018. She was having trouble swallowing. It was at this dinner that I learned of her cancer. I did not realize at the time it would be the last meal I would share with her. She had to leave this house for the final time shortly thereafter. She died in the beginning of September.
With her passing this house was never the same. It was the beginning of changes that will resonate for the rest of my days. My brothers decided that they wanted to sell the house. I had no choice but to go along. It was my mother’s wish that the house would be passed down to my children. Wishes and legalities are not always aligned. And so it goes.
While I will miss the house and the island, I try to keep a positive attitude about it. This door may be closing for the final time, but other doors will be opening. I will spend summers going to new places. I will explore new things with my camera. With the total commercialization and increasing summer crowds, it might be time to move on. But this house, this island, will always be inside me.
