In the fall of 1989 we moved our family of five from Columbia, MD to Roanoke, VA. Our time in Columbia was short by choice. After moving there from Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1987, we quickly decided that it was not the place for us to raise our children.
In May of 1989 we put our Columbia home on the market and came to visit Roanoke. We also managed to check out Blacksburg and the Mountain Lake Hotel of Dirty Dancing fame where the kids revolted because there was no swimming pool and no television. We ended up in what was then the Marriott in Blacksburg. At the end of the week, we received a full price offer on our home. Less than a month later, we signed a contract on our new home.
In digging through some old pictures, it struck me how much has changed since our first year in Roanoke. This picture of the house was likely taken in the spring of 1990. Around ten years later, the house and landscaping look a lot different. The pin oak that was in the middle of the first picture has started growing, and the silver maple that was on the far side of the yard has become a good sized tree. The cedar shake roof is gone, and there are two mailboxes which means we have neighbors.
In 1990 there were no houses around us. The snow plow even turned around before it got to us in the winter of 1989 because the driver thought no one lived at the top of the hill. Today we are surrounded by other homes.
However, if you compare those 1990 and 2000 pictures to the one in the post which was taken in May 2011, the changes both visible and invisible are truly amazing. First off the pin oak is now huge. It is amazing how much a tree can grow in Virginia in 21 years. The silver maple girded itself and had to be removed. Our original shrubbery except for the giant holly bushes is also gone as are all the cars in the second picture. Two of the cars in the picture, our old Subaru and the Previa both had analog cell phones mounted in them. Analog mounted cell phones and the kids have also disappeared.
In the 2000 picture you can make out our black Labrador retriever, Chester. He died in 2004 as did my mother who was living with us in the 2000 picture. Both the the 1990 and 2000 pictures were taken with film cameras and scanned. While I still have my film cameras it has been years since I took a picture with one. I now take a few pictures with my cell phone.
We came to Roanoke with three young children, they all grew up and went away to college and are out living on their own. Now we even have a granddaughter, but we also have a lot of wonderful fuzzy memories for those years on the mountain overlooking Roanoke.
As I was cleaning our deck today, it was hard to not think back on the many times I have stood on the edge of our deck and admired the mountains surrounding the Roanoke Valley. There are countless pictures that I have taken of the valley and the sun as it was rising over the mountains.
The pictures are nothing compared to the memories. There have been birthday parties, graduation celebrations, and neighborhood dinner parties on the deck. We have faced both wonderful and challenging times up on the hill. We celebrated many holidays by the big fireplace in our great room. In the winter of 2009, I shoveled snow until I thought I would drop. Only the appearance of our son for the holidays saved me from seemly endless shoveling.
Our house on the mountain was also home to a variety of pets besides our Labrador retriever. We had three cats over the years, and the last one just left us this January. Chester, Glenda, and I walked miles and miles on trails that I maintained up on the mountain behind the house. Walking those trails in a forest undisturbed for the last seventy years was like being in another world.
The house saw blizzards, torrential downpours, the remnants of hurricanes, and many impressive lightning storms. Through all of that our home was like a ship protecting us from dangerous waters. As rain lashed against the house and winds twisted the red buds on the bank behind the home on May 3, 2011, I knew it was just another storm where we would be safe inside our fortress on the hill.
The kids are long gone, so it is time for my wife and I to move on with our lives. While we might leave the home, we will be taking the memories with us. My hope is that the next family gets as many wonderful memories from our home as we are carrying away with us.
