More Memories from the Old Neighborhood

One day the kids and I had just turned down our street, when three huge fancy roosters strutted out in front of our car.

The neighbors across the street from us noticed a horrible smell in their backyard, and on closer inspection found a sacrificed goat in the yard of the house behind them.

Our street was hemmed in by a factory and a highway. It was lovely. We could watch the sun rise over US 131 and set into the old Kelvinator factory. The sound of traffic was ever present. Which, if you had a really good imagination, could sound like waves on a beach. There were constantly sirens blaring. Fog horns, maybe?

Domestic fights were extremely common. It was advised that we never say 'Yor Mama'. I didn't find not saying that difficult.

Once, a neighbor boy kicked Daughter. All of my maternal instincts went into high gear. I can give 'what for' when called upon to do so. Daughter was SO embarrassed.

I used to have to remove neighborhood children from my house. I found that to be so weird.

My mother-in-law once yelled at my kids for coloring with chalk on OUR driveway. She said it looked 'trashy'. Trashy? We lived in the inner city! Trashy looked chic!

On garbage day I would put blue trash tags around my kid's necks and tell them to sit on the curb. Oh, wait. We didn't have a curb. Just sidewalk and then street. And I didn't do that. I thought about it, but didn't do it.

You could get rid of ANYTHING on that street. Just set it in front of your house. Someone would snatch it up in no time flat.

One of our neighbors ripped the aluminum siding off of the house they RENTED and sold it for drug money.

Many of our neighbors were fabulous human beings. Once one of them was featured on the six o'clock news. He had come upon an accident where an elderly man had been killed. His wife was still trapped in the car with only minor injuries. The neighbor climbed into the car and held her hand and talked to her until she was able to be extracted.

I drove off once with my purse on top of my car. About halfway down the street - in front of one of the houses that usually had 10 guys sitting on the porch all day long - it flew off. The ten guys gathered up all my belongs and kindly handed them back to me. After that, they smiled and waved whenever I drove by.

Once THGGM counted 25 men sitting on one rickety old wooden front porch. All day long.

Another time we noticed an open upstairs window. From out of the window someone had neatly lined up about thirty pair of shoes onto a porch roof.

At the house just around the corner, someone hung a deer they had shot and gutted. It hung there for so long, I hope they never attempted to eat it.

Hanging laundry on the front porch was also considered acceptable by some.

The house we lived in was starting to seem small. It had three bedrooms and one bathroom. We sold it to a family of four, who presently have three other families living in it with them.

When daughter was 10 she made friends with a new girl on the street. The new girl told Daughter that she thought her dad was cute (THGGM). Daughter came home, told me, and then nearly threw-up.

Also when Daughter was 8 a neighbor was babysitting for a girl of 10. Unbeknownst to us, the girl was staying there while her father was being brought to trial for criminal sexual abuse of this girl. Daughter was asked to spend the night. The girl told Daughter EVERYTHING. Daughter was HORRIFIED. She couldn't sleep for MONTHS. Did I mention that Daughter was EIGHT???

We had a neighborhood Bible Club at our house for a week in the summer. Our friend, Joe Missionary set us up. The kids loved it. On the last day, we gave Bibles to all of the kids who came. The next week a little girl showed up at my door. She missed the last day and heard that all the kids got a Bible and could she have one. Of course she could. I went to get it. When I handed it to her, she danced around hugging it, saying "I've NEVER had a Bible! I've wanted one my whole life! Thank you!" I went back inside my house, where I had every kind of Bible imaginable due to the fact that my mother-in-law presently worked at Zondervan and gave us a copy of every translation known to man. It caused me to ponder.

I was absolutely miserable the entire twelve years we lived on that street. It didn't start out so bad, but the decline was extremely rapid once it started. I don't regret having lived there at all. But, there were some things about it that I still haven't recovered from.

It's terrifying to hear loud fights in a different language and to be clueless about what is being said. Screamed. What is being screamed.

When the neighborhood 'reporter' come out on a monthly bases, it was always shocking to see how many assaults and robberies took place just a few houses down from us.

I still get asked how I can stand living in a parking lot. Oh, I can not only STAND it, I LOVE it.

Of course, the very first month we moved in here, our car was vandalized in the parking lot. THAT never happened in the 'old neighborhood' our 'old' neighbors pointed out to us! On the very first Saturday we lived here, a strange neighbor boy pushed a metal snow shovel around the parking lot very early in the morning. It was AUGUST. The weekend newspaper gets dropped off right under out bedroom window in the wee hours of the morning. The dumpster gets emptied and sounds like a bomb going off.

But, I will never complain.

No. I lived next door to my grandmother-in-law for two years, and my mother-in-law for another 10.

After that, I feel like I could survive anything.