FLASHBACK: 9912 Collette (1965 - 1971)

Mary was happy to see her parents when we returned from Germany.

Oma loved Charlie. 

Ken worked his magic at the beach with a new Type III Karmann Ghia, which he had shipped from Germany.  This must be a later trip to Daytona, given the car and perfection of Charlie's cut.

By this time, I pretty much agreed with Mary about El Paso.  She characterized it as "the cultural crotch of America."

But she and Ken returned and traded up on their new home.  Ken installed the sprinkler system himself at 9912 Collette.  DIY didn’t have a brand back then.

9912 Collette

We lived across the street from a family who sheltered their priest.  Rumor had it he didn't remain celibate for long.  The Franklin Mountains, Texas' tallest, loom in the background on a rare cloudy day.

See, it does snow in El Paso!  It only takes an inch or two to paralyze the Sun City.  Charlie felt at home.

Charlie (January 1968)

Mary went for a French provincial look in the living room with reproductions of Maurice Utrillo paintings she purchased in Montmartre.

Here's where I attended middle school and unsuccessfully ran for class president with "Hon or Bust," my campaign slogan, printed on covered wagon fliers.

Dowell Elementary School

Ken and I spent a lot of time exploring in the Opel on weekends.  Mary refused to ride in it any longer.

I'll never forget a long, slow drive to Columbus, NM, just north of the Mexican border, on a dirt road.   By then, the railroad had stopped running.

We stopped at Pancho Villa State Park which commemorates the Mexican general's 1916 attack on the United States.  Mary was born that year.

Mary served a German chocolate cake to the neighborhood gang on my 13th birthday. Ronnie matured into a literal ladykiller.  Tommy was the only guy I ever bested in a fight.  David, our ringleader, became a pint-size juvenile delinquent.  I can't remember the tall boy's name, but I suspect he came to a better end than the other three.

Motley Crew:  Ronnie, Tommy, Jeff, David & Forgotten (1966)

Charlie adjusted to a much warmer life than he'd had in Heidelberg.   Ken insisted that I walk him every morning and night along Trans Mountain Highway because he didn't want him pooping in our small backyard.

Before Ken shipped off to Viet Nam in 1966 we built a hutch for my new guinea pig.  Charlie and Cratchit were Photo Pest's first photographic models.

I cheekily captioned this photo "Integration" and sent it to Ken to demonstrate how well Charlie and Cratchit were getting along.

Cratchit had free run of the back yard in warm weather. It didn't take long before a cat killed him.  His brown replacement delivered and ate a litter during one of Mary's bridge games.  

Books from this middlebrow shelf (Harold Robbins, Jacqueline Susann, James Jones & Henry Sutton) gave me a crash course in human sexuality.  Mary kept Portnoy's Complaint hidden in her lingerie drawer.

I took lots of photos to send to Ken in Saigon, mostly of Mary posing with my neighborhood friends including David . . . 

and Susie and Pattie, sisters and Army brats who moved into the neighborhood during his absence.

After returning from Viet Nam, Ken made good on his promise to build me a dune buggy. It spared me the trauma a lot of my gay friends had to endure during their high school years. Thanks, Dad!

 

In their early 80s, Oma and Opa moved to El Paso so Mary could keep an eye on them.  Here they are in Ruidoso, New Mexico.

They gave Mary their '64 Rambler.  Ken was appalled, but she loved having an American car with an automatic transmission.  They drove me to college in it.  An eight-track tape of "Who's Next" never left the deck.

Mary eventually prevailed upon Ken to buy her a new Chevy Nova.  Which I totaled.  Not my fault!

I left this apple-cheeked kid behind to go to Columbia.  Mary and Ken couldn't have been prouder.  Don't judge their clothes.  Polyester reigned in 1971!

Upstairs @ the Biltmore

Here's my big takeaway from the Biltmore Estate:  you didn't have to worry too much about meeting your daily step count goal.  It cost only $6 million for George Vanderbilt to construct it in 1889, just a little more than three times the asking price of the Dream House that Thom and I visited a month earlier.

I probably would have been more impressed if my childhood weekends in the Loire Valley hadn't included occasional chateaux visits.  Funny story:  my uncle once asked me how I liked the fireworks at Rye Playland.  "They're better at Disneyland," I replied.  He never forgot the comment and repeated it often, shaking his head every time.

Still, none of those dimly remembered chateaux included glorious floral displays and audio guides.  Or cost $84!

Live music at the entrance classed things up.  As if the estate needed that.  

Dinner for 38, anyone?  The dining hall is one of 250 rooms.  Size mattered during the Gilded Age.

Heat, too:  three fireplaces to keep the diners warm.

Here's where the men retired after dinner to smoke their cigars.  There's also a billiards room.

The architects operated under attention-to-detail and spare-no-expense mantras.  Fine craftsmanship everywhere you look.  It quickly overwhelms.

The fake butterflies did surprise me.  Fire the florists!

Thom on one of the landings of the enormous spiral staircase, my favorite part of the very dark house because it's one of the few naturally lit places.

Not counting the balcony of course, with unspoiled views.  After George's sudden death in 1911, his  heavily indebted estate sold 85,000 acres to the federal government, which became the Pisgah National Forest, one of the first in the eastern U.S. 

Sculptures of artisans flank each of the massive, arched windows.  This guy's a sculptor. Very meta.

Apparently, George was quite the reader, with 35,000 volumes in his library.  Not even Chris reads that much!

Tapestries in chateaux are de rigeur.

Props to the Vanderbilts for honoring the two men who designed the estate. Here's John Singer Sargent's portrait of Frederick Law Olmsted, long one of my heroes.

Sunlight hit this floral arrangement just right.

George had his own bedroom.  

His wife, Edith kept family portraits on her bedside table, one of the estate's few touches of warmth.  Imagine her reaction when the newlyweds arrived at their new abode for the first time:  "Honey, I knew you were loaded, but this is . . . beyond!"  Such a fortunate couple:  after their wedding in Paris they were supposed to sail home on the Titanic, but changed travel plans at the last minute.

The dining hall looks even bigger from above.  Did I mention it has a pipe organ?  But George gave the original to the Old Souls Church in the Biltmore Village shortly after opening the estate.  Maybe he, like Marx, understood that "religion is the opium of the people."

Each of the 35 guests room are named.  I definitely would have requested this one.

Edith Wharton and Isabella Stewart Gardner were among those invited.  During the 1905 holiday season, Edith wrote this to a friend:

“Yesterday we had a big Xmas fete for the 350 people on the estate – a tree 30 ft. high, Punch & Judy, conjuror, presents & ‘refreshments.’ It would have interested you, it was done so well & sympathetically, each person’s wants being thought of, from mother to last baby.”

Here's the room where it happened for the guests:  conversation, games and live music.

And, of course, a subtle reminder of where all that largess came from:  "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt's shipping business.  Fun fact: my grandfather worked for the New York Central Railroad, bought by the Commodore two decades before Opa was born in 1889.

Earl C. Ostrander, known to me as Opa, locomotive engineer.

My favorite tableau, a color coordinator's wet dream!

Cornelia, George and Edith's only child, was born here, in the Louis XV room.  Edith liked its light, something in short supply in America's largest home.