Hommel Mangas
“I remember running through the wind-blown sheets hanging on the line,” fastened with wooden clothes-pins between the two t-shaped metal clothes line poles. My older sister Debbie texted some memories after my deadline last week — saying “Goodbye Little House” in my column last week. Commenting on the freshly laundered sheets — “I can smell the sheets now — I also remember having to hang the clothes, diapers and sheets as the little one ran through them.”
Debbie’s memories jumped-started my cranial muscle memory into recalling how having two older sisters was an advantage when it came to the chore of helping Mom with the laundry of nine. I would quickly and martyr-like volunteer to fold the cloth diapers and rubber baby diaper covers — diapers were much smaller and easier to fold than clothes and big heavy bath towels.
This same three, vinyl-coated clothes line that I lost my first contact under while hanging clothes. I had worked an entire summer saving babysitting month (50¢- $1 an hour) so I could purchase my first set of contacts (I think hard contacts cost about $150 – $200 back then.) While doing my chores, my left contact popped out under the clothes line and I had searched for two days. Younger brother Kevin, defied my plea to not mow under the clothes line on the third day and mowed anyway. But on the third day, I took a flash-light in the evening and still found that hard contact by the glimmer of the light nestled deep in the blades of grass.
So, we’ve reminisced as my siblings and I recently said goodbye to our childhood home — in the Frank and Betty Hommel family for nearly 70-years. My husband, who moved every three years growing up since his Dad, Jack Mangas, was general manager of multiple plants for Dresser, Inc. an energy conglomerate, suggested we (the Hommel family) had been greatly blessed having a ‘home base’ for all of our lives — “not too many people have that.” It was also a home base and holiday gathering for the spouses, grandchildren and greats.
Debbie also texted: “I remember how much fun we had racing our bikes down the street and kicking our balls over the electrical and telephone wires that crossed the street.” At the end of May, we would have Indy 500 races starting at Rose Lane making a series of laps around Mercator — the bigger, stronger kids (and the ones who got permission from their parents) cycled the longer, hilly oval from Rose Lane to Ursal Lane and back.
We left a weathered homeplate in the backyard. I told Kevin I found a photo of David (our #6 sibling) standing at it with his baseball bat during a backyard game when he was about eight years old — so the photo must’ve been from around 1975. Kevin recalled that when he was quite young, there had been some huge construction project in Greenwood with a mountain of dirt — he and a couple of boys had found that plate stuck side-ways in the dirt-mound and drug it home. When we hit the ball over the fence into the alley and touched first base (the tree), past second base (the tip of the garden), and through third base (the forsythia bush) — I never knew stealing for home was on an actual stolen base, until Kevin shared that story a few days ago.
We’ll always have fond memories based on Rose Lane, but as they say: My family is my home. So, Leta, Debbie, Kevin, Jerri, David and Chris, spouses, grandkids and ever-growing families, cousins, and outlaws — let’s continue to make great memories, but maybe not steal any more home bases.
Janet Hommel Mangas grew up on the east side of Greenwood. The Center Grove area resident and her husband are the parents of three daughters. Send comments to [email protected].
