Homeward

A true story by Erick Sahler

The back door to my grandparents’ house was always open. No one ever knocked.

Enter the tiny kitchen to a whiff of stale nicotine and the savory smells of supper simmering on the stovetop. Leftovers from breakfast or lunch on a plate in the middle of the table, for anyone passing through.

The countertop stocked with what we now call junk food. Back then, it was just food: Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets, Lance Nip-Chee crackers, cheese doodles (always puffy, never crunchy) and my favorite — Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews. Help yourself to what you want.

In the fridge, powder-mix sweet tea. Reach for the pitcher and sneak a look for the Velveeta cheese box, hidden treasure in plain sight. The family secret can now be revealed. The box was stuffed, literally, with “cold cash” — the profits from last summer’s vegetable stand.

From the cellar to the attic and all the rooms and closets in-between, I was intimate with every inch of my grandparents’ house. For 40 years, returning to their back door meant going home, no matter where I lived at the time.

So I could relate when I received a message from a woman who had seen my work in Oxford, Maryland, and wanted to commission an illustration featuring her grandfather’s old farmhouse and pickup truck.

Cecil Bancroft lived in a tidy peach-colored bungalow on Rural Route 5 in Warrensburg, Missouri. The address was hand-lettered on the side of his cream-colored 1972 Ford F-100. The truck is an American icon — classic lines surrounding a rugged machine that will run forever with regular oil changes.

His hometown, Warrensburg, is farm country straddling US 50 — the same highway that runs through my hometown. Bancroft raised cows.

A reference photo his granddaughter shared shows the pickup truck behind the house, with metal chairs set on a concrete patio on either side of the back door.

It could have easily been my own grandparents’ house and seeing it stirred a wave of sentiment. What I wouldn’t give to visit there one more time — even if to just eavesdrop on an era that seemed kinder and simpler. Hell, better.

You might feel the same about your own grandparents’ home.

Then I noticed the patio chairs in the Bancroft photo were green and red — unintentional buoys directing wayward navigators back to port.

Red, right, return.

When you reach the back door, you are home again.

If only.

The patio chairs on Cecil Bancroft’s porch were green and red — unintentional buoys directing wayward navigators back to port.