After five years living in a “recreational lake community dedicated to nature” where residents zip about in golf carts and the Symphony plays every July 4th, my folks are moving back to St. Louis.
I’m doing my part. Want to buy a house?
Five years ago, I blinked with surprise as my mom called to say they were selling our house of 18 years. We lived at the intersection of two increasingly busy streets, and when the tractor-trailers began rumbling by on their way from the highway to local stores, my parents threw in the towel. After weeks of house hunting, they moved an hour west to Innsbrook, where the only sounds they could hear were fish jumping in the lake and the occasional cussing golfer.
If you’re going to sucker-punch your child by selling their childhood home, moving to a house on a lake is a very respectable way to soften the blow. We could walk to the golf course or the swimming pool, or stare out any window of the house at a shimmering lake over morning coffee. When the lake froze over during the winter, my brother-in-law and I entertained ourselves by heaving large rocks onto the surface to see if it would break.
Ah, memories.
I’ll miss the place. It’ll be much easier to see friends in the St. Louis area during visits, but I bet there won’t be any lake that freezes over in the new backyard. Maybe I’ll get them a birdbath. It won’t be nearly as dramatic, but it’ll have to do.