THE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD

We moved to Greentree when I was about seven...the neighborhood didn't change very much during the ten years that we lived there. Mrs Turocy lived in the first house, and we never saw her...I mean never. The only time I was on her property was when my mother chased me up the street because I'd talked back to her...and I took cover in Mrs Turocy's pine tree. Of course I don't remember what I'd said to my mother....but I'm sure I had a point. Next to her were the Stroh's...Jehova Witnesses, and a reclusive old couple as well. Mr Stroh changed a lot though...once he got a dog. The dog was rescued as I remember, and he was as big as one of the bulls in Pamplona. Mr Stroh used to walk him a lot..on a massive length of rope...and he started being much more visible and friendly because of "Pal". Mrs Stroh never came out of the house. The Kirby's had a son named Beecher who was mean most of the time..doing cruel things like erasing our hopscotch game on the street with their garden hose....while the girls and I would huddle together and whimper. The Kirby's had more money than most people...and they drank a lot. A lot.

After Mr Kirby died, Mrs. Kirby would take a cab to the liquor store...and sometimes she would just send the cab driver...and pay him for the trip. I liked Mrs Kirby a lot, she taught me how to grow tall zinnias, and she'd make Beecher pick them for me. Maybe that's why he was so mean.

My pal Susan lived next to them with her two brothers and two sisters. Other than the time we threw a dead snake on her while she was lying in their hammock, as I've written previously...we were great friends and neighborhood leaders. Susan's mother grew beautiful peonies, and every year they were the talk of the neighborhood. She had a big long row of them in reds and whites and the standard pinks. One year as we all waited for the annual display, her little boy Chuckie came into their kitchen with a sand bucket filled with all the little round buds. No peonies that year.

Barbara and Marie lived in the last house on that side of the street. Their mother was really pretty...and proper..but in a nice kind of way. Their yard was always perfect, and they had a screened in porch that was the holy of holies in the neighborhood. You had to be on PERFECT terms with Barbara and Marie in order to be invited onto the porch to play Chutes and Ladders. When it rained the elite would be on that porch...being treated to frozen Koolaid ice cubes held in a paper towel...and munching on Cracker Jacks while the less fortunate were trapped in their hot little houses. Barbara and Marie smiled favorably on me sometimes...but not all the time...so I had sorta mixed feelings about those two.

The other side of the street was more volatile and hence much more interesting...I'll get into that later. I still hear from some of those old neighbors today...we reminisce about all the good times there...but we don't say too much about things like the snake...or the taxi's...God forbid we tarnish the memories of our perfect childhoods.