Memories of Dad and Home

"Put all these houses together, and in some bizarre way I had the perfect home."

By Calen Robertson

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Childhood memories of home can be powerful reminders of relationships with parents and siblings. Calen Robertson in Austin, Texas thinks fondly of the days when his father didn’t have a permanent home. He reflects on a childhood spent hopping from home to home, when his father would house sit for months at a time while the owners were away. (October 8 on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered)

"So Dad, where are we staying tonight?" This was the question that I asked every other weekend for five years. I was eight years old at the time, and my divorced parents shared joint custody of my two brothers and me. My mother owned a small, three bedroom house in North East Austin. My father had no permanent address.

At first, he had no intention of choosing a homeless lifestyle. My dad’s land lady had given him two weeks notice to vacate because she wanted to move back in. My father spent the next month looking for a home. He never found one...not in his price range, anyway. My dad teaches the Japanese martial art Aikido for a living. It’s never brought in a much of an income, but it’s what he likes to do. Unfortunately, it made finding an affordable home difficult.

Some friends heard about our situation and suggested that we stay over...just for the night. A few weeks later, they went out of town and suggested we take care of their place while they were gone. Before long other friends were making similar offers, and after 5 years we had a network of over 15 houses, including a retired couples’ downtown condo where we would sometimes house sit for months at a time.

My brothers and I took this house hopping in stride, I guess, and not because nothing ever fazes us. We had nothing to compare it too. It seemed natural.

And to be perfectly honest, it wasn't bad. Put all these houses together, and in some bizarre way I had the perfect home. We house-sat for places that had an upstairs and a downstairs; a place that had a home theatre; a place that had a cozy little park a few blocks away; a house that had a vegetable garden from which we made pita sandwiches. It was like owning a mansion, where we would only explore small sections of it at a time.

Sometimes, however, despite our vast network of houses, there would be no house sitting gig available. We had to improvise, which usually meant making the 30- minute drive out to Muel Shoe Campground and setting up a tent for the night. By the end of the five years my father, my two brothers and I could set up or take down a tent in 3 minutes or less. At Mule Shoe we would look for shells, which I would fit together, one inside of the other, like a Russian doll.

And at the end of these weekend excursions, I would come home to my mother's house, and it really was home; the place that I could always go back to.

Those five years were hard on my mother. She wouldn’t always know where we were going when we spent the weekends with our dad, and there was no phone number she could call if there was an emergency.

Now, five years later, my dad has a permanent address instead of just a P.O. Box. It’s a nice house, with an upstairs and a downstairs, a deck with a view overlooking the greenbelt in our back yard, and a Franklin stove in the living room that keeps us warm in the winter. But I’ve already been in every room, looked inside every closet, and peered into every nook and cranny. The sense of adventure and anticipation with which I looked forward to each weekend with my father is not the same.

Sometimes I wish that I could revisit some of those places that I called home during the nomadic period of my life, even if only for one night. But as I prepare for the transition from living with my parents to living on my own, I find that it is more important for my dad to have a home that’s really his; another place I can always come back to.

- This story was produced by Youth Radio in collaboration with Youth Spin in Austin, Texas.