(Originally published on the Shelley Berman site.)
I sometimes visit my old houses.
Sadly, no one famous once lived there.
Sadly, no one famous is hankering to move in, either.
The site of my first home, of the mobile type, is now covered by the tarmac of the south runway at Indianapolis International. Shelley probably flew over me more than once.
I may have waved. I was five at most, so I can’t remember if he waved back.
Probably he did.
My second home, not far away, has grown frighteningly small but otherwise has weathered sturdily.
My third, far away in South Florida, I saw weekend before last. One of the hurricanes of last season had walloped it soundly. Blue plastic sheeting covers a good quarter of the roof and something heavy appears to have dented the midsection.
But Dad’s bracing on the gables held, and the house stands, a somewhat battered but defiant prizefighter awaiting whatever swirling roundhouse the summer season chooses to bring.