The neighborhood has changed.
copyright 2005-2012 John D. Moore (PapaRoot)
The neighborhood has changed.
Maybe I have been living with blinders on. Maybe I have been in a state of denial.
Or, maybe, it had been happening little by little, and I just did not notice.
However it happened...whenever it happened...the neighborhood that I have called home for 40 years isn’t what it used to be. Or, maybe I’m not.
All of us young folks walked around the block stopping to chat with other young folks just like us. We all were mid thirties or so in age, and shared similar generational viewpoints of the issues of the day. After a few walks, we knew most of the names and all of the faces. We were an exciting mix of neighbors, friends, acquaintances from a wide range of backgrounds that had somehow found each other and our newly developed neighborhood. We shared the same concerns about the schools, the roads, taxes, and local politics. Life was familiar, predictable, comfortable ,and soothingly routine.
Of course, there was the “older couple” that lived up the street. They were “generationally out of step”, and reminded us of our parents. Turns out that they had built the first house in the “hood” quite a n umber of years earlier. They were really nice empty-nesters with a ton of grandkids. And, you couldn’t beat the cookies from them that occasionally appeared at our door!
But, something happened between those youthful storybook days and today. I suspect it was life just being life. Things changed. It happened by degree. It happened by circumstance. It happened by choice. And, it also happened by fate disguised as accident or ill health.
Through the years a real estate sign would appear and the neighborhood would buzz with “well founded information” on why the “folks just around the corner” were leaving our safe haven. Some said it was because the couple had fallen on hard times due to their business closing. Some said it was because they had decided to “go their separate ways,” or a desire to live in an area with a sports team that didn’t have to perpetually “wait until next year.” And, sadly, some said it was because of the ambulance that had lit up the street a few weeks back.
Those” for sale" signs should have been a wake up call to the fact that any neighborhood isn’t a static thing. Change is a constant. Our neighborhood wasn’t any different. It had, and still has, a life of its own. I guess I was too busy to pay attention as early neighbor after neighbor disappeared, and new ones appeared.
Over the years folks came and went. At first it was like a sports team re-stocking a roster. The replacements always seemed to be cut from nearly the same cloth as the ones they were replacing....about the same age with kids, increasingly slightly younger than our own, replacing the original neighbors who had moved on down the road. The pace of change was gradual.
But, during the last decade there has been a quickening of the pace of change. Even then I didn’t “neighbor” enough anymore to notice. A few years ago I started using a lawn service more, walking the block less, and caring even less about the ever increasing school budget. I now care less about the area’s professional sports teams. And, the lure of winter time Florida sunshine had finally turned us into semi-snowbirds.
This year the shock of coming back from that sunny climate finally cleared my “change avoidance” vision. I finally noticed the difference...my neighborhood has changed...a lot. Most of the old faces are gone, and the new ones all have darker hair and less wrinkles that I, and the remainder of us from the ‘“hood’s” early years, have. No longer does everyone tear out at 8 am either. At least I don’t. I have discovered the joys of “tele-commuting"!Us old guard types are just having our first cup of coffee by engine cranking time. Or, we are reading the morning newspaper...before we head out to Tops to check out this week’s sales items.
Of course when the weather gets a little warmer there will still be baseball uniforms and dance costumes roaming door to door on our street. There still are young parents walking around the street stopping to chat...usually with each other about things I don’t think about, or care about, much anymore.
It finally dawned on me that I don’t even know most of the faces anymore, let alone the names. They talk about the future. They talk about their kids. My wife and I, and the few other leftovers from the early days, talk about today or yesterday a lot. We share pictures of our grandkids.
The neighborhood has changed. When my wife and I walk by, or drive by, the new, young folks up the block, they wave and smile. My wife took them some freshly backed cookies the other day. They really seemed pleased, After all, they seem to really like the “older couple” up the street...the ones that live in my house.