The House in Mesquite

Our house was at 4105 Oleander Trail in Mesquite

At some point, Aunt Aline offered to have Joyce, and the kids stay with her in Hope until we closed on the house in Mesquite.  I would drive from Dallas to Hope Ar. every other weekend to visit and help with the kids. Aline was very gracious and opened her home to us without any reservations. She was a real sweetheart.

I think the kids and Joyce were there during Christmas, because I remember the kid’s making decorations for Aline’s tree.  We also wanted to go to church on Christmas Eve, but there was no Episcopal church in Hope, and all the Baptist churches did not do Christmas Eve services.  I don’t think they even had services on Christmas Day.  They just had services scheduled the next Sunday.

We finally closed on the house in Mesquite and were able to start the moving process. 

About the House

The house in Mesquite was not much to write home about, but it fit our needs at the time. There were 4 bedrooms, which meant that Kim and Kelly shared a room after Kelly was old enough for a big girl bed.

There were 2 bathrooms. One for Joyce and me, and one for the 4 girls. They were not happy campers about that. 

The house had a large den added onto the rear of the house. I don’t think there was ever a permit applied for before the den was built. The wall between the dining room and the den ALWAYS leaked when it rained. We had several guys try to patch the roof and stop the leak, but were never successful.

Rat Problem

One time at band camp ( Nope, that's from another comedy movie ) the area behind our house was being cleared for some new construction. It was mostly brush, but was a prime habitat for RATS. Big ole Norwegian rats. Some were the size of Lola, our puppy now. Since their home was destroyed, they decided to invade ours. 

We first noticed the problem, when Joyce went into the pantry to get something. She noticed dog food on the floor. I think Cinnamon was our pet then. Joyce got upset at the girls for spilling the dog food and not cleaning it up.  It happened a couple of days later, and Joyce looked further. She found a hole chewed into the bottom of the 2 gallon tupperware container the dog food was stored in. That's when we knew we had a problem. Joyce thought she had heard something at night in the attic. We got a small metal trash can for the dog food. That fixed that problem, but another cropped up when Joyce went to get some cereal for one of the girls. (Probably Kelly as she was the smallest). Joyce saw that that Tupperware container was chewed through also. The rats were attacking the cereal now. The fight was on.

I went to the hardware store and bought several mouse traps. We set them, but found out they were tripped in the morning, and the bait was gone. Then we actually saw one of the rats. It was in the hallway between the kitchen and the bedrooms. That’s when we needed some bigger guns.

Literally, and figuratively. I went back to the hardware store and got some rat traps. These suckers were hard to set, and if you tripped it when trying to place it, you could lose a finger.

We would catch at least 2 a night, and still they came. I would sit in the living room watching TV and could see the rats sneak down the hall. I got a BB gun and kept it by my chair cocked and ready to fire. I shot a couple, but I think it just pissed them off, I didn’t kill any that way.

We finally killed enough that they sought other places to infest, and we were left alone.

Oven placement

The oven in this house was weird. The stove top was in the kitchen, but the oven was located in the laundry room off the garage. This caused Joyce a lot of extra steps for each meal she prepared. I never could figure out why, but suspect the area below the range was not vented enough to get the heat generated from the oven out of the house, so the previous owners moved it to the laundry room. It stayed in the laundry room the whole time we owned the house. 

Big backyard

The house had a large back yard. At one point we had an above ground pool back there,

and the kids still had plenty of room to play. The next door neighbors had a daughter about 15 or 16 years old, and she babysat our girls quite a bit. Her name was Jamie Shipman. That was the only time Joyce and I could go out was when we got someone to babysit the girls. 

Mowing the yard.

I know the girls hated it, but I taught them each how to mow the yard. God, they hated that, but what do you have 4 kids for, if not to help with the lawn. They always complained that the yard was too slopey. It was kind of hard pushing the mower up hill.