The Apartment

Time passes so quickly when you have grandchildren. Luckily, even though they make you aware of the passing of time, they keep you young. In the blink of an eye, they grow from cute little kids enjoying simple pleasures on a summer day to......

responsible adults juggling school, a job and a first apartment. We had to be in Des Moines for a Dr's. appointment yesterday. On the way out of town, we made a quick stop to see Ki and his new apartment. When I heard he was moving out of the familial home to share an apartment with a co-worker, my first thought was, "He's too young to be out on his own." But after seeing him in his new home, I realize he is going to be fine - this is just the next step in his growing up.
His apartment is filled with natural light. It is spacious with a good floor plan. Laundry facilities are just one flight down. Furniture is a little sparse, but that just means Ki can look forward to picking out his own and discovering what his personal tastes are. His share of the rent seems doable, too, even if it is almost ten times the amount of rent I paid for my first place.

Ki is a little older than I was when I moved into my first home away from home. It was a dark, unfurnished, three room apartment above the Pepsi-Cola warehouse in Corning. That was back in the day before cans and plastic bottles. It wasn't unusual to be awakened late at night or early in the morning by the clanking of bottles - empty cases being unloaded in order for full ones to replace them in the truck.
The apartment didn't even have a bathroom - there was a lavatory about halfway down the hallway - with a full bathroom down at the end. The only laundry facility was the clothesline on top of the roof of the building at the back of mine. Laundry had to be hauled down stairs, taken to the laundromat, washed, lugged back up the stairs, down the hallway and out the back door to be hung up to dry. But the rent was doable. And, like Ki, I was learning to grow up on my own. His first apartment is so much nicer than my first one was, but I imagine the feelings of being an adult and the freedom that comes with it are similar.

I cannot say The Apartment without thinking about the movie that came out the summer of 1960. It starred Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray. And while the premise - a young man trying to curry favor and rise in his company by lending his apartment to the company executives for their trysts - seems archaic by today's standards, it seemed risque to me when I was a senior in high school. As much as I enjoyed the movie, even better was Ferrante and Teicher's theme music from it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxF69wON2oc
I can hear the theme from The Apartment (Jealous Lover, composed by Charles Williams) and be transported back to the age and time of my own first apartment.