The family house, no longer

2026-02-21 - 14:04

I have picked my last grapes and grape leaves. In 1950, when my father bought his first and only home, a two-family in Cambridge, the property came with a rickety arbor supporting a Concord grape vine. Dad and his parents cherished that vine, their connection to the old country. They enjoyed sitting in its shade, shooting the breeze with neighbors over the low picket fence Dad had made. They shared skewered lamb or chicken kebabs Dad roasted on a homemade, complex geared machine that could accommodate 25. The device eventually collapsed from overuse. The neighbors, vine and house were part of my DNA for nearly 70 years. I grew up in the house and attended public grammar and high school in Cambridge. My friends were dozens of kids who lived on or around our street. They would come by to play endless games of Monopoly on the front porch or shoot hoops in our yard. Dad had built the backboard. I commuted to college and work from that Cambridge house. I brought girlfriends home to meet my parents, the last becoming my wife. We ended up living in the first-floor unit, originally agreeing to a one-year lease, which ultimately became nearly 40. Fortunately, my wife and Mom got along famously. We raised two sons in that house, sending them through public school. I demolished basement walls so the boys could go up to Grandma’s via the basement without going outside. Frequently, we all dined together in one flat or the other. Cambridge was a great place to live and raise a family. We befriended other school parents and were fortunate to be within walking distance of Harvard Square, work, our bank, our church and the T. Along the way, we would run into other Cantabrigians and simply talk. My wife, who hailed from the suburbs, enjoyed chatting with strangers on our street. For years, we hosted family and friends for dinner, sometimes under the arbor I had rebuilt. We would serve meat- or rice-stuffed sarmas, wrapped in the tender leaves I carefully selected from our vine. For dessert, we would offer walnuts with fruit rollups we made from the grapes I had picked and processed with Mom’s help. Our ideal life in Cambridge began to unwind about 15 years ago. After Mom passed from heart disease, as her parents had, I re-designated the house as two condos. Eventually, due to rising expenses and a desire for more space, my wife and I transferred our unit within the family and moved to the suburbs. I was approaching 70 at the time, relocating for the first time. My decades of being a glorified street townie/old-timer ended. In our new community, my wife and I made a concerted effort to meet new people. To get grounded, among the first things we did was obtain library cards. I volunteered at the local non-profit TV studio. We created relationships we simply would not have made otherwise, and we enjoy our new home and neighbors. No regrets. Now, the old Cambridge house has been sold. I look back over my life as the third of four generations of Megerdichians to own and occupy that house — one family with three-quarters of a century in one dwelling! Almost unheard of nowadays, when people tend to move several times a decade. Perhaps the new buyer of the property will look upon that grape arbor with a touch of the attachment my family had for it. I cherish two photos — one from the 1950s of my grandfather on a step ladder, in his fedora, blue suit and tie, tending the vine; and the other of me decades later, in the same pose by the same vine, wearing jeans and a baseball cap. May the old house bestow on its new occupants the joy it has given my family all this long time. Robert Megerdichian measures existing buildings professionally and restores old baseball gloves.