What is it that you want to do but just can’t get to? What is it that calls your name and leaves you thinking “when I have more time” ?
Today I exited Route 95 at the Portsmouth traffic circle and, traveling less than a mile in an arc, I entered a community that recalls a different era, though now slightly updated. These homes, I have to imagine were developed out of the need for homes for those returning from WWII. The United States had an economy that was better than ever and Americans were seeking a better life. People moved out of cities and sought homes in newly designed suburbs—a term coined from sub and urban, to mean less than a city.
The homes I drive by today are classic post WWII.
A post-war house, thought of as a home built in the late 1940s throughout the 1970s, is tagged for having a sameness to them, where they’re indistinguishable from the rest of the neighborhood. But what they lack in originality, they make up in their dependable sturdiness.
These homes are rooted in American history, possibly some of the few home styles you learned about in high school. They were built as the American soldiers returned from fighting in World War II. Government legislation, such as the Federal Housing Administration and Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, helped to fuel the housing industry — which had been flagging in the 1930s and 1940s — and suddenly millions of Americans across the country were buying up single-family houses. http://www.frontdoor.com/home-styles/all-about-post-war-architecture
Although not originally from New Hampshire, the 509 Bombardment Wing is famous for the singularity of its mission—to drop the Atomic bomb. The group made history Aug. 6, 1945, when the B-29 “Enola Gay,” piloted by Col. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. http://www.whiteman.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123062208
The 509th BW moved its personnel and equipment to Pease AFB, N.H. in August 1958. A perfect fit for the post war home built just under Route 95 and on the street I am traveling. This home has standard cement stairs painted gray and an iron railing painted white. A rose bush gives the home its own touch.
The woman I meet with in one of these homes spent all of her married years an Air Force wife. She is small and walks slowly on swollen legs. A curve to her back so she is bent forward, and although it is already 75 degrees and headed towards 80 today, she wears 2 long sleeve shirts and a silky housecoat.
In works, she put her husband and children first. She tended to her home and her community. And all of that time her heart was in the church. She shares with me today that her husband once joked that she should bring her bed on down to the church because Jesus Christ was her first love. She tells me that she has been given the gift of healing, that she is the vessel and that God still heals today.
When I ask her what her goals and objectives are in hiring Seniors Helping Seniors of NH she states that she wants help with the cleaning. She has to crawl up the basement stairs when she returns from doing laundry so she is certain she will not fall. Vacuuming, dusting, oven cleaning. Arthritis and diabetes make these chores difficult.
Her goal: To work for the Lord. Her interest: Evangelizing. I tell her she is lucky I live an hour away or I would be at her home every day. We pray together and both feel blessed.