Monday, September 1, 2008

End of the Row


We did not share steps either, which means we lived in one of the upscale houses on the street!!Love, CLB

There is always room for snobbery. I think the residents of #13 could claim it, just by virtue of their single steps, but they had #13 and that, plus their placement among the neighbors pretty much cancelled it out. Thanks to my dearest old friend, I am reminded that the truly upscale folks in the neighborhood between the cemetery and the woods were those inhabiting the "end house". Any row of houses eventually ends and that last one is always slightly different than the others. It doesn't share steps and there is access from the front of the house to the back of the house. There is, however small, a yard that runs along the side of the house where normally another house would be. There are interior windows where the other houses have large expanses of wall, resulting in a brighter home. The owners of end houses were always well aware of their higher social status and often enjoyed rubbing the others nose in it by prohibiting any access to their yards. That's where the greased metal pole came in, the brambly thorn bushes, high walls with stones placed strategically so that it was impossible to rest one's behind on them. Fences. End people, quite frankly, were often anti-social. They certainly were not row-house people and despite their attitudes we would remind them that they were not single house people either. They were, just people who did not have to walk their lawnmowers around the block just to trim the front lawn.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, what are you being so mean about!?! Do you want me to smush gum in your hair again? Now you will have to go down the sewer yourself the next time you loose your damn ball and you can not borrow my skate key!!

Lorraine DeLuca Placido said...

Ah, but I have the giant wrench for the fire hydrant!!!

Anonymous said...

Ah, going down the sewer...another Winthrop Drive tradition...and rides on the back of Kenny's truck, kicking the street lights out to stay out later, Capture and knock, knock runaway. Can you imagine our kids doing any of that today? Okay, yes, playing Capture, but not the other three.

CLB - hope your family is doing well. Last time I saw Jon and George (at the Beef and Beer...what 8 years ago already), I could not believe my eyes.

Lorraine - one other Winthrop Drive memory - I can still visualize that little hop you took before releasing the softball. Remember that, and when you helped coach my team? Oh and again...thanks for that lovely picture - although I enjoyed seeing Darby.

Lorraine DeLuca Placido said...

I was thinking about that streetlight thing the other day. I would drop dead if I saw one of my kids riding on the back of an ice cream truck. I actually get short of breathe thinking about how we'd go down the sewer and then stay there!

We play softball now and then and my kids get a scream by the way I STILL throw the ball. I have no arm although I never miss a catch. It is embarrassing.

Darby is married and living in Las Vegas. He is an architectural engineer and his wife Amanda is a forest ranger at Lake Meade.