Tales From The Lebowskis - Their House (In The Middle of Their Street)

From the mid-1960's to the mid-1970's, the Lebowski family lived in a great big house (3 stories, 6 bed, 8 bath) that I've never seen the inside of. Seven people (two parents, five children) is a big family, and a large house would be reasonable for a large family, but this house also doubled as a care facility for several adult patients that my grandmother, Mary Lebowski was responsible for (she was an RN who basically ran a mini-rest home in her own home for a few wards of the state). It is a constant sadness to me that I never got the chance to visit this house (it is now occupied by a privately owned business, although my aunt Pappy does visit sometimes for her work, which is nice for her). It sounds like a fun place where lots of interesting things occurred. I'd like to walk you through some of the highlights.

The living arrangements were as follows. The basement was a basement, and had laundry machines. The first floor was the main living area with kitchen, dining room, etc. The 2nd floor had bedrooms for Nonnie, Jaja, their two sons David and Stephen (Hulka), and the patients. The third floor, accessed via a flight of stairs with each step painted a different bright color, housed my mother, Diane, and her two sisters, Susan and Patty (Pappy). The bulk of the third floor was Patty and Susan's room, which was enormous. My mother's room (she desperately wanted her own room, being the oldest) was tiny, like a broom closet. Because it was her VERY OWN ROOM, she got to paint it any color she liked. She chose lavender. Apparently this tiny room was extremely lavender. It was once described by David as "so damn purple, Prince and Barney would spew."

Having the patients live in the house provided Nonnie and Jaja with convenient watchful eyes when they wanted or needed to get out of the house. If you think about this, though, the patients living there were wards of the state. Hulka likes to point out that they were, "frequently left in the care of individuals the state deemed unfit to care for themselves." One patient's entire babysitting strategy was slap a box of cigarettes in his hand and demand that the children "get off my floor!" should they venture to play on the 2nd floor.

The first floor of the house, as stated earlier, was where the daily living took place. With 5 kids and 4 or so patients, Nonnie and Jaja thought it economical to invest in a milk machine, the type you might see in a college dining hall. They'd buy enormous bags of milk, load them in, and then the milk would freely dispense from it's tube when the lever was pressed. Susan perfected a trick she would demonstrate for Hulka where she would milk the milk machine. She would grip the pouring tube as if it were a cow's udder and use the "milking" motion to nudge the lever with her elbow. Classic misdirection. Hulka's use of the milk machine was more direct: he liked to wrap his lips around the tube and hit the lever.

The outside of the house was apparently full of memories too. It featured a built-in pool, for one thing. However, Nonnie lived in perpetual fear that young Hulka would have dangerous mishaps given any chances (this was a somewhat justified fear, given little Hulka's fearlessness, which is probably better described as obliviousness to danger rather than "bravery" per se. He once, at age 3 or so, held a Vietnam protest parade which consisted of walking the median line of the busy street the house was on holding a flower. Tractor trailers honked their support, he assures me.). As a result, the pool was not allowed to be filled beyond a couple of inches of water. Poor innocent Hulka might've drowned otherwise.

In addition to a pool, the yard also had a fountain. This fountain, like the pool, had much less water in it than it should, by design, have held. It held zero water. I do not know if this was another deliberate Hulka-proofing on my grandmother's part or not, but I do know that according to my mother, aunts, and uncles, an empty fountain has some great hide-and-seek possibilities.

Another outdoor highlight was a very tall evergreen tree. This tree was not a highlight on it's own, it was rather the site of an escapade involving my mother's cousin Jimmy Sownd. Young Jimmy was apparently an expert climber and a bit of a little shit. On this particular occasion, he managed to climb all the way to the very top of the tree, clinging not to a branch but to the central tree trunk, at that height so thin and flexible that he was reportedly swinging from side to side, rocking the top of the tree, shouting not with fear, but with glee. His father, George "Gorilla" Sownd demanded he climb down, a demand which was summarily dismissed. Uncle George was nicknamed Gorilla for a reason: he was built like one. The man called Gorilla was FULLY displeased at having to climb two full stories up a tree to haul his monkey-swinging son down. I'm pretty sure Jimmy's ass got beaten to hell and back for that one (it was a different time).

As if these weren't enough outdoor items of note, the backyard also featured a life-sized statue of the Madonna (the religious figure, not the singer), and an enormous D.O.T.-orange trash barrel. This barrel was notable for moonlighting as a swimming pool for the kids (since the real pool could not be filled, as mentioned above) and as a vehicle of sorts. A favorite game of the Lebowski children was to load a child or two into the barrel, turned on it's side, and send it rolling down the hill, most frequently to come to a sudden and clanging stop at the propane tank. This may sound dangerous, but the kids were sure to run a series of tests before attempting this. The tests consisted of getting their neighbor and friend, Sally Bigalow to do exactly this dangerous thing first. This was a valid strategy for a number of potentially hazardous outdoor activities, I hear.

My favorite detail about the Lebowski house of those days, saved for last, is the fact that it had a laundry chute. I always thought laundry chutes were really cool when I was younger, because it was a legitimate excuse to drop things from a fair height, usually a no-no. But this laundry chute was special. It ran from the 2nd floor to the basement ceiling, with an opening on the first floor as well. In about 1970 or so, the Lebowski children needed to find out just how valid a shortcut from the 2nd floor to the basement the laundry chute would be. Sally Bigalow must not have been available, because the test pilot for this mission was none other than Hulka, 6 or 7 years old at the time.

The four assistants made sure there was plenty of laundry at the bottom of the chute to cushion the landing. A few bedsheets and a pair of underwear was probably enough, right? The intrepid young sailor of gravity gave his thumbs up and he was hoisted into the chute to make his rapid headfirst descent. What the kids didn't realize was that about halfway down the chute, it narrowed. Hulka did not. Firmly lodged upside down in the chute, Hulka awaited rescue by his siblings. They tried valiantly to free him, eventually resorting to using a broom to try to push him through the narrow segment to freedom. Hulka reports that he wishes they'd used the other end of the broom, and that the handle didn't even buy him dinner or call him after the time they had together.

Eventually, Hulka was freed, relatively none the worse for wear. But it's a pretty unique family of five kids that sends the youngest brother down a laundry chute just to see what would happen. Or maybe not so unique. You should ask my dad's brother Sean Thirty about that.