It is mid-April in Door County WI. We had 33" of snow melt quickly, followed by rain upon rain, and finished, for now, with thunderstorms last night. There's water coming in our basement. We're in that cycle of moving fans and shop-vaccing the floors every 15 or 20 minutes trying to keep things under some degree of control.
We purchased our first home in late 1996. After several years of apartment life we were excited to have a small two-bedroom one-bath house in the heart of Downers Grove, walking distance to the train and shopping. It felt small-town, but with every advantage of suburban living. Working in Chicago, the proximity to Metra was perfect for me.
If I think about the important albums in that period of my life, there are really but two, and both from Counting Crows. In the mid-90's they were at their apex. Adam Duritz spoke to the loneliness I felt even within the largest city I would call home. August and Everything After saw me through the end of college, the beginning of adult life, corporate trainings, and the feelings of being an outsider despite being in the middle of everything.
It was serendipity that their follow-up Recovering the Satellites came out days before we purchased the house, newly married, and fresh into a team-change at work. We had entertained serious notions of moving to the Bay Area, rendezvousing with good friends, and taking some time out of the Midwest. After a visit over Labor Day weekend, largely scouting out if this was our next chapter, we got off the plane in Chicago, looked at the other and realized we were Midwesterners, and that evening after going to bed, our phone rang. It was our realtor. A house we'd made an offer on in May was back on the market. It was our dream house. It was the final sign we needed.
So our introduction to what real home-ownership meant was in February 1997. Some heavy rain on frozen ground left us battling 15+ inches of water in our basement. We fought it as best we could with our portable sump-pumps, newly purchased at Home Depot, until we just had salvage what we could, and make some peace with it. Kim headed to Indy to see friends. I fought a bit longer before heading into the city for a party with friends. My soundtrack for all of that was Recovering the Satellites. On repeat.
We'd go on to have this fight over the years with our little house until 2013 when all of the skills we'd learned were for naught, 8 inches of rain fell on frozen ground, a creek in the neighborhood flooded from poor management by the village of Downers Grove, and we woke to 4 feet of water in the basement, and a flooded backyard and garage. We'd see our 3 cars towed away. We'd need the help of family, friends and neighbors to clean up the damage. It would be months of work before we were back to normal.
As I keep the fans moving and the shop-vac sucking up as much water as I can, I'm playing Recovering the Satellites and thinking about the passage of nearly 30 years. Have you seen me lately?
Kevin
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