ROGERS — The last house I lived in with my mother and brothers was at 350 Combs Street in Fayetteville. While other homes on the street faced each other across the block-long dirt lane, ours sat at the end. From the front porch, we watched every car as it headed directly for our front door.

The place was not beautiful - just grey "brick siding" with matching trim. From the ceiling of the porch a grey swing hung lazily, drifting with the breeze.

Inside was brighter, the work of our amateur hands.

Through the medium blue paint on the west living room wall, one could read "Kilroy was Here." No amount of paint could cover our juvenile joke! Beyond the wide arched doorway was our blue dining room sporting white glossy woodwork.

Both bedrooms and the bath were a soft green; the bath with a huge claw-foot tub was boxed in at the end of the screened porch. There were outbuildings and a garden with asparagus and rhubarb already established and a nice backyard to play in.

After our grandfather's suicide, which made our former home sad and eerie, we rented that place on the southeast side of town.

Shortly after the funeral, our Uncle Les from Washington took us kids to the new house to help clean it while Mom packed our belongings.

In one bedroom the owner left a small dressing table with a false back. Opening the "secret" panel, Les found a grass skirt - a souvenir, perhaps, from a sailor's seafaring days.

We gathered around to see and touch the relic.

Les rolled his khaki pants up, exposing skinny white legs covered by thick dark hair, and of course, black socks and black shoes; then he tied the grass skirt around his waist. I giggled.

"Do you know how to hula?" he asked, brown-eyes gleaming with devilment.

"No-o-o," our four voices answered.

"Then don't you be laughing at me," he said, sternly, "because I'm going to teach you. Just watch closely and listen to me." He shuffled into the empty living room and twirled to face us as we stepped through the door. He raised his hands, limp at the wrist, to chest height and began to wave them before him and sway lazily. Bill snickered. We stared at our handsome young uncle, who just days before had seemed sad and solemn in his dark suit and tie; now he was ridiculous in a South Pacific costume.

"The next one who laughs will have to dance the hula for us," he said directly to Bill.

"Lesson number one: you plant the grass." Les gestured toward the tie on the skirt. "Next, you just rotate the crop." He slowly turned, still swaying from side to side and waving his hands, until his back was toward us;

then he moved his hips in a circular motion.

Joe rolled on the floor squealing; Bill and I laughed for the first time in weeks; little Jerry stared in total amazement. The laughter brought tears that ran down our faces and washed away the stress we'd been under.

Already christened by joy and tears before we unpacked, this house would always be "home" for the Hogans as we filled "350 Combs Street" with laughter, music, love and memories to last a lifetime.

Martha Hogan Estes was born in Vernon County, Mo., but came to northwest Arkansas in the early 1940s. She attended public schools in Washington and Benton counties and raised a family there after short residencies in Tulsa, St. Louis and Memphis. She holds a BA in English from the University of Arkansas and is retired from the Rogers offices of Georgia-Pacific. She is a member and co-facilitator of LifeWriters.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 10/07/2009

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