The first summer and winter were taken up with the move. He was five. Packing up his things in one house and unpacking his things in another, shopping with the family for a new sofa and kitchen table at Tonnesdatter’s, then Sears, and finally at Kaufmann’s, where his dad scowled at the price tags. The boiler and its octopus arms had to go. I am not shoveling any more coal, his dad declared. The replacement gas furnace required that the walls throughout the house be opened to accommodate the new aluminum ducts and registers. The wallpaper with gigantic roses and carriages pulled by horses with shaggy hooves and purple plumes between their ears had to be removed, scraped off with putty knives layer by layer and inch by inch. READ MORE.