THE HOUSE THAT HOBY AND BARB BUILT

     Whoa, like 40 years of life just came to an end!  Dad is going to Florida and moving out of the house that part, or all, of the Melton family has been living in for 40 years.  Seems like an appropriate response would be to blog about my favorite memories…..

• Sitting with a cast from a leg operation, playing with the race track we got for Christmas in our back room (which is not there anymore!)
• Playing wiffle ball against myself in the backyard after we mowed out a baseball field back there.
• Wiffle ball games with actual other people in the back yard - Scott Augello could hit a home run every time. 
• One of my greatest memories - thousands of Wiffle Ball games in the front - yes, we had stats!  (And we got yelled at by the Korandas because we were going to hurt their house….with a Wiffle Ball!)
• Rocky sneaking out of the backyard and being brought back by the police.
• The night that Rocky breathed his last breath in the living room.
• Sitting in my room, listening to the Top 40 and drawing pictures for each song.
• Watching 5 hours of the Matts Wilander / Ivan Lendal tennis match.  We didn't see the end; because 4 hours and 50 minutes before that Dad had told us to do something and finally turned off the T.V.
• Hearing the Vanagon driving from the end of the block whenever my dad would come home (the only thing that was louder was his whistling - which you could also hear from the end of the block).
• Get it out! Get it out!
• When someone sat on the banana.
• When I told either Jim or Rick what I got them for Christmas - to this day I swear they used a Jedi mind trick on me.
• Speaking of swearing, the one time I swore at 317 Hale (before we started swearing for fun!).  "I don't give a *&(&(*& what shirt you wear!" He asked!
• Playing All-Star Baseball on the floor - for hours….and keeping stats!
• Having John Kanak over to play some baseball game on the computer.
• Whipping my Chipmunk doll against the door and breaking it one day when John was over.
• The day Jim went out for a deep pass and ran head first into the Hajek's light pole.
• Pulling into the driveway with brown drawers after a summer league baseball game - should have held it!
• The Christmas morning when we got all the board games.
• Taking a Coke out of the fridge, taking a Coke out of the fridge, taking a Coke out of the fridge (repeat about a zillion times)
• Grandma Melton showing me her scars on the back porch.
• Flinging burnt dinner rolls around the living room with wooden spoons on a Thanksgiving night with Mark Pendergrass.
• I kissed a girl in my bedroom once!
• I also kissed a different girl in the backyard.
• And I kissed another one in the driveway.  That was about it.
• Lifting weights in our garage was awesome.  A lot of sweat is on that floor.
• When we made our old garage into our bedroom.  In the couple months it took, we had full-court Nerf hoop.  I played a lot of games in there.
• Cammy's polka-dotted door.
• Rick and I having the messiest room in the world.
• We did have water beds though.  It made up for the year or two that we slept on those fold-out chair things.
• I'll never forget playing Four on the Couch or Christmas Caroling with our shirts off.
• There were a lot of basketball games watched in that house!
• One time, we had races where we'd ride our bikes in the grass, up the driveway and to the porch and time ourselves.
• Ooooh, the eighth grade graduation party.  
• Standing on the edge of the doorway to try to see what we got for Christmas, while we waited to wake up our parents.
• The night of my mom's Celebration of Life as we sat around the table - a lot of great times around that table in recent years!
• My dad trying to hook up a new water heater in the laundry room.
• Trying to memorize Mr. Irwin's fraction / percentage table.
• Eating butter creme frosting right out of the bucket….or putting it on the top of ice cream!
• Making bagel sandwiches.
• Having an Easter Egg hidden in the vent - classic.
• Decorating the tree with tinsel, and pouring egg nog in my shirt pocket.                                         Obviously, there's a whole bunch more and some awesome thing happened in that house, but what I'll remember most from those 40 years at 317 Hale is what came out of that house.  18 great people and one great family.  THANKS MOM AND DAD FOR MAKING 317 HALE THE GREATEST HOUSE IN ROMEOVILLE'S HISTORY!  (Side note: Not saying much, it's only Romeoville!)