attic antics

The grandeur of Tanner Manor belied our humble lifestyle, but we were rich in some ways. We were rich in freedom because our mom and dad trusted us, so they gave us a very long leash to play and discover things on our own. Fortunately for us, we didn’t have to go much further than the walls and halls of our own home to find adventures. Consequently, no nook or cranny of Tanner Manor went unexplored. 

​​Take our full-length attic, for example. Running the full length of the house, the attic was a jungle of exposed beams and secret doorways, all painted silver to cover smoke damage from the fire that had threatened to burn the whole house down just six months after my parents and their first 11 children had moved in. (Fortunately, my brother Richard, just eight years old, discovered flames behind the staircase panels at 7:55 a.m., when not one but two crews of firefighters switching shifts came to the rescue.) More than the typical, dusty repository of old things, the attic in Tanner Manor served as our gymnasium, playroom, and hideout where we could safely escape.​

Like discovering Narnia in the wardrobe, entering the attic meant crossing into a separate world. We’d explore alcoves and other nooks and crannies full of treasures waiting to be discovered; we’d play hide-and-seek in dark corners; we’d do backflips on old mattresses; we’d get slivers swinging like monkeys from the roughly cut beams; we’d dress up in wrinkled homemade costumes once paraded across church and school stages. And when we felt particularly adventurous, we’d crouch down to enter the waist-high door located at the far end of the room, and, there inside, we’d lower ourselves into one of the two dumbwaiters running the full height of our four-story house and prove our bravery by shimmying down.
 
But probably our favorite attic activity was sliding down the staircase—our California version of tubing down a snow-packed hill. Perching atop a discarded baby-crib mattress or slithering our young bodies into thick, old sleeping bags, we’d whoosh down to the third floor where only a closed door could stop our descent. Over and over, we’d return to the top of the stairs for a repeat thrill. No carpet softened the blow; no insulation masked our squeals. It never occurred to us to be quiet.
 
“Where was your mom, and how did she react to such a racket?” a girlfriend once asked. Her question left me flummoxed. I’d never wondered if our rumpus bothered Mom or anyone else, for that matter. Later, it came to me: our parents took genuine delight in seeing and hearing us play! One of the best things about them was the freedom they gave us to be children, to play with gusto, and to embrace all Tanner Manor had to offer. Those long hours playing and exploring in the attic remain some of my happiest childhood memories.
 
Not all our fun was inside the attic, though. The attic was also our passageway to high adventures outside Tanner Manor. Climbing out the south-side windows, we perched atop the Spanish-tile roof three stories off the ground. On rare days when the smog level dropped and the view was clear, we could see all the way to Long Beach. On rare occasions, we would stay up all night in the attic to watch the sun rise over the greater Los Angeles area. I don’t remember pulling those all-nighters very often, but when I did, I could count on feeling sick and tired the next day.
 
Even when we weren’t taking in the spectacular view, we thrilled in daring each other to walk around on the roof. Occasionally, as we gingerly tiptoed across the slanted ridges, we would crack a tile or break one that would slide off and crash to the ground. Dad would grumble at us, of course, but I’ve since wondered if the broken tiles frustrated him less because we were on the roof and more because he wasn’t a fixer. Broken or missing tiles meant the roof would need repair indefinitely.