How can I describe it? My childhood bedroom looked liked an oversized dormitory room whose three out of four walls were lined with two double beds and two very serviceable double dressers. A closet ran the entire length of the fourth wall which was necessary for the four LITTLE WOMEN who bunked there. My mother managed to find the only two other pieces of furniture that would fit in the room. These were two matching green chintz covered boudoir chairs. Green was also the dominant color in the wallpaper and the carpeting. Fifty years later, you will never see me wear green, eat green, or buy anything green.

There were four sisters ranging in age from seven to seventeen at the time this large second floor bedroom was actually configured by my parents. It seems the whole idea behind it at the time was to keep the two brothers downstairs and the four daughters ensconced in glamorous digs with a large closet, mirrors over the dressers, and boudoir chairs. A staircase was actually reversed to enable this room to be built for us. My parents no doubt envisioned a mini movie set. But because of the age differences among the four of us, someone was always coming and going. And oh the fun we had! Younger ones would be getting ready for bed when the oldest was getting ready for a date. The middle one would be doing homework and talking on the phone at the same time. It made for great bedlam.

Then the teasing and fooling around between the two beds was something to behold. Usually first sister in got the spot by the wall which was considered the “safest”. All of us were afraid of own shadows and the new room seemed so far away from everyone else that unwittingly, we fought for positions in the beds!. We also told scary stories to make matters worse, and the reflections of the old trees’ branches under the lone street lamp didn’t help matters either. We laughed, we cried, we cuddled and slept like a litter of kittens in our refuge from the rest of the world. For a while we were friends.

The house is gone now leveled by some business takeover. We sisters are all estranged, things happen. I have moved to a different state, but whenever I go back “home”, I always go past the old site. Sometimes I park at the curb and look and listen. In time it all comes into focus and I can almost hear the giggling, the falling off the bed , and one of us squealing “Mom, she pushed me.”