There's No Place Like Home

Stephanie Mills - Home

Verse 1

When I think of home, I think of a place
Where's there's love overflowing
I wish I was home, I wish I was back there
With the things I've been knowing
Wind that makes the tall grass bend into leaning
Suddenly the raindrops that fall, they have a meaning
Sprinkling the scene
Makes it all clean

Verse 2
(When I think of home)
Maybe there's a chance for me to go back
Now that I have some direction
(Maybe there's a chance I'll get home)
It sure would be nice to be back at home
Where there's love and affection
And just maybe I can convince time to slow up
Giving me enough time, ooh, in my life to grow up
Time be my friend
And let me start again

Verse 3

Suddenly my world's gone and changed its fate
But I still know where I'm going
I have had my mind spun around in space
And watched it growing
And oh, if you're listening, God, please don't make it hard
To know if we should believe the things that we see
Tell us should we try and stay or should we run away?
(Should we run away?)
Or will it be better just to let things, let them be, oh
Living here in this brand new world might be a fantasy
But it's taught me to love, oh yeah
So it's real, it's so real, it's real to me
And I've learned that we must look inside our hearts to find
A world full of love like yours, like mine

Outro
Like home
Like, like home
(When I think of home)
My friends smiling down on me
Giving me their energy, oh
(When I think of home)
I think of a peaceful world and joy all around me, yeah
(When I think of home)
And love that we share can never, never, ever be taken away from me, yeah, yeah, yeah
(When I think of home)
I just sit down and think
And gets on down in my bone, bone, yeah
(When I think of home)
I can hear my friends telling me
"Stephanie, please sing my song"
I wanna sing, I wanna shout
I wanna tell you what it's all about, yeah
(When I think of home)
Yeah, yeah, yeah

For better or worse I think of the place in Detroit where I grew up as home.   The story of my childhood home began when my Dad immigrated to the United States in 1957.  He lived with the man I knew primarily as "Uncle" in that home.   Home was a duplex with two three-bedroom units downstairs and two three-bedroom units upstairs.   I believe our home was built in the 1870s.

Uncle at the time owned the house and was a landlord renting each of the bedrooms in the house to different patrons.   My Dad would end up renting the room that at first would later be my first bedroom as a small child and later Trina's bedroom when Tasha wanted independence from sharing a room.

My Dad would say how he got his first job and would save money so that he could paint his bedroom.   He spoke with pride how he got his own Encyclopedia set.   Papa said Uncle had an Encyclopedia set but became upset if my Dad held on to a specific volume too long.    That was when he decided to get his own set that he stored in his room.    All of my Dad's possessions were in that room.  

I'm a little hazy on the history but at some point my Dad moved out of our home and was living in another home with my "Grandma" in a place that was nicknamed Mt. Elliot.  There may have been other people living there as well.   That part was not clear.    I'm guessing it may have been around the time he got his job working at a Sherwin Williams plant.   That job would be a blessing and a curse for Papa. 

My Dad with his new wife, my Mom, would come back in 1976 to live in our childhood home once again.   Uncle by then was no longer a landlord and was in his last years of living.    The story was that Papa purchased the duplex for $6000 from Uncle.   With the way home prices are today, it's crazy to think homes used to be that cheap.

One of the few early memories I had as a small child was running with Tasha around the side of the house.   I believe both of us may have been excited by the extra space and we did what kids do.   My grandma (who was really my Dad's first cousin) would end up living in one of the upstairs units with her husband who I don't have any memories of since he died when I was 6.

Growing up in our childhood home had it's good and bad times like any home.   Since it was just the six of us living in the home (Trina would come along two years later in 1978), we all had free range to venture anywhere in the house.

As I mentioned my early years I had the bedroom that Papa used to stay in.   I later ended up moving to another bedroom in the back unit of the duplex.    I would wind up being by myself in that back area though we all used that space to live in as well and it was the path we took to go into the backyard and then the garage.

We had questionable neighbors that lived around us.   Our next door neighbor to our left also had a similar style duplex that was owned by a man I knew as Mr. Wick (changed the last name slightly for privacy purposes...LOL).   Mr. Wick also rented out parts of his home as well and some of those patrons were questionable.   There was a harmless guy named Hobo who spent his days sitting in the front porch just randomly laughing to himself and drinking alcohol.   He clearly had mental issues.   He was harmless though compared to Mr Wick's nephew Streek.

Streek was evil incarnate.   He along with his cronies broke into our home sometime in 1981 when we were at church one Sunday.   We returned home to find the front door wide open and chaos everywhere inside.   I remember feeling violated after the fact and I know it upset the rest of the family.   After that happened Papa hired a company to install bars on all the lower level windows.   It was the beginning of the end for the neighborhood as a whole.

Streek wound up going to jail after numerous other break-ins and spent close to a decade in prison (though I don't know the exact timeframe).   He was released from prison in the early 1990s sometime.   His next foray was selling drugs on the block.   We would be witness to random shootings that would happen between rival gangs.

It seemed the police was in on the drug drama as nothing would be done to get rid of the bad element.  Sometime in 1997 there was a shootout on the block with Streek ending up being shot to death right in front of our home.

I had moved out in August 1995 and had just moved to Chicago from living in Washington D.C. for a  new job.   I remember Mama calling me to give the news and how it traumatized them.   I felt so bad for them.

A new gang took over the drug trade after Streek was killed and the neighborhood continued its decline.   They even went so far as to loiter in front of our house and hiding drugs under our welcome mat.   Many of the neighbors moved out and my parents ended up being one of the last remaining residents until another shooting this time specifically targeted at our house happened in 2013.   

For years my sisters and I implored Mama and Papa to move and find somewhere safer to live.   My Dad decided to find a place on his own.   It was a two bedroom apartment in a senior citizen apartment.

Despite the issues with the neighborhood, it did serve as our home and we had many memories there.  For example, I smile as I recall how I used Papa's encyclopedia to do various book reports (even though the data was outdated seeing that the set was from 1960...*LOL*).    Various extended family members visited us over the years as well.    We had many family dinners in the kitchen and dining room.    We celebrated birthdays, holidays, and other life celebrations as well.

Since my parents moved away, the home became abandoned and was destroyed by both human and nature.   Papa still paid the taxes on it for a few years but decided he didn't want to deal with that anymore and gave the home to Tasha.   Tasha was not able to pay the taxes on it and the home eventually was taken back by the city.   Before that happened she tried putting it on the market but there were no takers.

The thing about home ownership that trips me is that even if you pay off the house (which Papa did when he bought it in 1976 for $6000), you truly do not own it free and clear.   You can still lose the home if you don't pay property taxes on it.   It's even worse when you live in a condo with association fees (like I did for 16 years).   If you continue to pay the mortgage and do not pay the association, the association has the right to take the home away from you.    That seems so unfair.

So the house was on my mind and I decided to check out Zillow to see what they have listed for it.  I was on the train on my way to work last week when I did this.   I was surprised to see that the home was no longer standing and now it's a vacant lot.   Ironically Mr. Wick's long abandoned duplex is still standing.   The lot currently is on sale for $25,000.

It feels surreal seeing that the home I once grew up in through thick and thin is no longer standing.   I don't recall Tasha or Trina mentioning that it was torn down.    Then again they may not know either.   But it truly is an end of an era.   Next time I'm in Detroit, I may do a quick drive-by to check the area (if it's safe).