A Catholic Citizen in America

This week I’ll talk about 818, a house I lived in as a child and youth; and why gratitude is a good idea.

• House Numbers, Names, and Memories
• One House, Three Kitchens
  • The Basement and a Clothes Chute
  • Noisy Switches and Quiet Light Bulbs
  • The Back Yard, a Landing, and an Experience
• Gratitude: a Work in Progress

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House Numbers, Names, and Memories

I don’t remember 1215, the house my parents lived in when I was born. It wasn’t much later when they moved to 818, also in Moorhead, Minnesota.

My earliest memory is of 818. I don’t know how old I was, but it was probably before I learned to walk.

At any rate, the memory is a sort of snapshot of the stairs between the first and second floors, looking up from a landing that was two steps up from the living room. The perspective doesn’t make sense unless my head was less than a foot from the floor.

I’m not sure why my folks called our homes by their numbers: “818” (“eight-eighteen”) and 1010 (“ten-ten”).

Maybe it’s because they were both librarians, and applied a habit of numbering books to identifying houses. Or maybe they thought it was a good way help me know our address. That way, I could find my way home or tell someone where I lived.

One House, Three Kitchens

Before my folks lived there, 818 had been modified, with an apartment on the second floor, and another in the basement. My guess is that quite a few houses around the college campus had been refitted that way.

I don’t know this, but it’s likely that one reason they bought 818 is that the second floor apartment was a place my mother’s mother could live. I don’t know when she moved there from Hillsboro, North Dakota. Grandma had always lived upstairs, as far as my awareness went.

We didn’t, arguably, actually need three kitchens for a single multi-generation family. But the arrangement suited the way we lived at the time.

The Basement and a Clothes Chute

The basement apartment was where my father kept his clothes and set up a den. For a while he had darkroom equipment set up in the apartment’s kitchen.

His den was what would have been the apartment’s bedroom/living room, at what seemed like the back of the apartment. It was actually under the front of the house. Stairs to the basement were under the stairs to the second floor, of course.

Facing the foot of those stairs, you’d see a squarish door, with the sill about two and a half feet off the floor. It led to a crawl space my folks used for storage, under my bedroom: which was a flat-roofed addition they’d added. Don’t know where they’d have put me, otherwise.

Anyway, a 180-degree turn at the foot of the stairs put you in a short hallway, with a door to the basement apartment’s kitchen on your left, a door to the subcompact bathroom at the end, and a low door to under-stairs storage on your right.

Angled to the left of the bathroom door was another door, leading to an unfinished part of the basement.

That was mainly where the washing machine and, later, dryer, were, to your left, and beyond that a deep indent in the wall with shelves holding canned goods. I’m told my grandmother did canning down there, for at least one season.

The furnace defined the right/east side of the room, with the bottom of a clothes chute coming out of the ceiling between the furnace and hall door.

As a child, I thought the clothes chute was very cool: a vertical passage that let clothing drop from the second floor to the basement. And I remember my folks being what struck me as excessively insistent that I shouldn’t let myself fall down it.

Noisy Switches and Quiet Light Bulbs

I must have been — interesting — to raise. My parents told me that while we were living at 1215, they turned off lights by unscrewing the bulbs. If I was sleeping and they used a light switch, I’d hear the sound and wake up. Screaming.

These days, astute parents would likely spot that as evidence of a subset of my neurological glitches. Back in the early 1950s, my folks simply got in the habit of unscrewing light bulbs and moved on. My guess is that the discomfort/pain of my glitchy hip struck them as a likely cause for my hypersensitivity to sounds.

Either the switches in 818 were quieter, or I’d sorted out which nighttime sounds warranted being alarmed by then.

Let’s see, what else. Cats and back yard. Right.

My folks had the habit of sequestering the cat(s) in the laundry room at night. Which reminds me. My father had a very small shop set up behind the furnace, between it at a wall of the basement.

The Back Yard, a Landing, and an Experience

The back yard, I’m told, is one reason my folks took that house.

A fence was up when they moved in. Or maybe they’d determining that fencing it in would be a straightforward job. Either way, I remember the fence as always being there.

Having an enclosed back yard was a priority, they told me much later, so that I’d have a moderately secure place to run and play. Not that I was much of a runner.

Going out the back door, there were steps going up to a tiny room that was just big enough for a door to the steps, a window facing the back yard, and another door leading to the landing at the bottom of those stairs leading to the second floor. The back door itself was about a quarter of the way down the stairs to the basement.

One time I was heading to the back yard, and apparently forgot about the quarter-flight of stairs down to the door. I don’t remember falling, but do remember noticing that I was on the landing, on my side, and experiencing discomfort. I only did that once.

As I said, I was probably an interesting kid to raise. More so than usual.

818’s back door originally went straight outside. Not long after they moved in, my folks got a back porch added on: screens on three sides. We’d often eat out there during summer. The house was not large, and it was a pleasant spot.

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Gratitude: a Work in Progress

There’s more I could say about 818, my early years, and why I think being grateful for the memories I have is a good idea.

But I did something to my left wrist Tuesday evening, and have had it in a brace since Wednesday. The way it feels encourages me to keep typing to a minimum, at least for now.

Uncomfortable as it is, the situation includes cause for gratitude.

My youngest daughter, without prompting, decided to add a left-handed wrist brace to an order she’d made for medical equipment.

The left-handed brace arrived Thursday, around noon. It works much better than what I’d been doing: putting a right-handed brace on my left wrist. I don’t recommend doing that, but wearing it, with my left hand’s little finger going where the thumb should be, let me hold the joint still overnight.

That’s a good excuse for being grateful.

Now, about being grateful. Very briefly. It’s generally a good idea.

Acknowledging the gratitude I owe God is an obligation.¹

I don’t have a problem with that, since I appreciated the beauty and wonders of God’s universe long before I became a Catholic; and am profoundly glad that I’m here to do so.

All that’s happened recently, in terms of that gratitude, is that I’m learning more about why it’s a good idea.

I’ll wrap this up with a few quotes, a thought about being thankful, and the usual links.

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him, bless his name;
good indeed is the LORD,
His mercy endures forever,
his faithfulness lasts through every generation.”
(Psalms 90:4–5)

“See that no one returns evil for evil; rather, always seek what is good [both] for each other and for all.
Rejoice always.
Pray without ceasing.
In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”
(1 Thessalonians 5:15–18)

Acknowledging my gratitude for God’s many blessings: even when, for example, my wrist hurts and I remember losing two of our children? That’s a work in progress:

• “Our First Childbirth: Memories and a Few Thoughts” (August 30, 2025)
  • Baptism of Desire, Uncertainty, and Hope
• “Thanksgiving 2023: Still Being Thankful” (November 23, 2023)
  • Giving Thanks Anyway
  • Rough Patches
  • Equality, Differences and Being Thankful

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¹ Acknowledging the gratitude I owe God isn’t always easy, but it’s a good idea anyway:

“One can sin against God’s love in various ways: – indifference neglects or refuses to reflect on divine charity; it fails to consider its prevenient goodness and denies its power. – ingratitude fails or refuses to acknowledge divine charity and to return him love for love. – lukewarmness is hesitation or negligence in responding to divine love; it can imply refusal to give oneself over to the prompting of charity. – acedia or spiritual sloth goes so far as to refuse the joy that comes from God and to be repelled by divine goodness. – hatred of God comes from pride. It is contrary to love of God, whose goodness it denies, and whom it presumes to curse as the one who forbids sins and inflicts punishments.”

“Thanksgiving characterizes the prayer of the Church which, in celebrating the Eucharist, reveals and becomes more fully what she is. Indeed, in the work of salvation, Christ sets creation free from sin and death to consecrate it anew and make it return to the Father, for his glory. The thanksgiving of the members of the Body participates in that of their Head.”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2094, 2636) [emphasis mine]