That's a street light as viewed tonight through this north facing window. Why is this important? Read on! The neighbourhood that I live in comprises of two large houses (one of which is mine) along with fifteen other homes built in about 1974 or 1976. My home, and what we still refer to as The Davis' home (though they left some twenty years ago) are on Westover. If you take a right beside my house you'll be on Wildwood Circle, which is a horseshoe street with some nine houses. It ends in a stop sign and you cross over Westover to get to the other section, a cul-de-sac, with the rest of the homes on Dogwood Cove.
The old Ainsworth home was the first house, at the top of the hill (near my house), on Wildwood. They moved out thirty years ago. There have been different renters of that home for awhile, but now The Neighbour lives there. The Black Muslim whom I've referenced in other posts. Then there's the old Dickenson Home, which now houses a white family with big trucks and they are backyard fence buddies with The Neighbour. In the Daniels' old home is a Latin American family with chickens. There aren't a lot of original home owners left in this neighbourhood. We aren't even the original occupants of this home, though we moved in January of 1980, while I was in womb. The builder of the neighbourhood built this home for himself, but had a heart attack two years later and couldn't climb all the stairs. Some lady with two sons moved in after that and didn't stay long. Then we moved in. Most of the original occupants were older, with teenage children in the 1970s and into the mid 1980s. Behind The Neighbours' house, the original occupants were an elderly couple and their grown son moved his family in after they died. The people at the end of the street, at the bottom of the hill, were the original owners, then moved out and rented it a little bit, moving back in at the end of the eighties. There's a small, one story French Provincial home near the end of the street. I think the original occupant still lives there. She was old when I was a kid. Perhaps a relative of hers lives there now. It's covered in mildew and there's a dead, moldy Bentley in the drive. I've never seen anyone outside of that house and only knew it was occupied when I went door to door either selling Girl Scout Cookies, Trick or Treating, or asking if anyone had seen our cat who'd gone missing. I still never see anyone out there, but the yard is always cut. And there's Old Man Adams where the horseshoe curves. He's been here since the beginning and he was always an asshole. Apparently he wasn't good to his son who was a teenager when The Sister was five. He's the only one that lives there and no one seems to visit him and he brings his tiny dog up the street to go to the bathroom in our yard. I also think he might have poisoned one of our cats, but I have no proof of that. I really didn't know anyone who lived on the other side of Westover, though I Trick or Treated and sold cookies there. Technically the rule when I was growing up was that I couldn't cross Westover and had to stay on Wildwood or tromp around in the woods. There were lots of old ladies that lived over there. A couple built a house over there in about 1987 and it looks out of character with all the modest, but nice 1970s homes, though is certainly out of date now. The couple were about my parents age, the man was pastey and doughy, a white man. The wife was Asian with a slight accent. I found it fascinating because they reminded me of my piano teacher and her husband. Someone else built a house over there, directly behind The Davis' home in the woods in about 1989. But otherwise not much had changed over the years. The older kids moved away, then their parents, new people moved into the already established homes, the houses were showing their age; the neighbourhood was showing its age. Growing up, for the most part, I was the only young kid roaming the area. Everyone was in high school or gone by the time I was four. Running around the neighbourhood shirtless, banging on doors and making friends with old people. A girl several years younger than me moved into the only house with a pool, and then her and her mom moved out two years later. During that time a boy visited his grandparents often. A girl a little older than me moved into the house at the end of the street for a few months. Dad even bush hogged a path through the woods that separated our houses. Another boy rented the last house on the right for several months before also moving away. Otherwise, It was kind of a lonely existence growing up in this neighbourhood. The streets were quiet, the mothers busy with house keeping, the men out to work, or else they were simply elderly people cooped up in the air conditioning during the long warm months and then the heat during winter, I suppose. No one was puttering around in their front yards. No one was ever outside. Hardly anyone decorated for any holiday. Hardly any house had their porch light on welcoming kids on Halloween. Growing up with free reign makes changes difficult. I was the first baby born on this block, I was the only constant young child since 1984 (when mom let me roam away from the house and yard unsupervised). I wasn't the only kid to tromp through those woods, but I tromped alone. I wasn't the only kid walking, biking or rollerskating up and down this street, but I was alone. It was just me and I pretty much ran the neighbourhood. I'd play pretend, do bike stunts, probably mutter to myself, go in peoples backyards to get to the creek. No one ever came outside to tell me to get off their property or to stop singing, being loud, or riding my bike in front of their house. No one ever came out at all. It was just me in the yards and the street, like it was some small ghost town. So, when this realtor showed up and clear cut the bend at the bottom of the hill it felt like some sort of intrusion. It was a green spread of grass. It's always been this way. Now it's overturned dirt and mud with a new mailbox in front. Then that realtor put signs up with his face plastered on it everywhere there was dirt and grass. He's bought up any scrap of land with intentions to sell and develop. Then he tore down the woods beside my house, moved a house there and worked on it for eight months. Fucked up our utilities, had the road torn up, the area next to our fence disheveled now looking like a bomb went off in the desert, and kept marching into our yard with utility people he'd asked to do work for him. He was pushy and bossy. Saying he grew up a few streets over (which is a different neighbourhood) and was friends with all of the old teenager who left home by the time I was two and basically envied them living in this great neighbourhood. I wanted to bite back with, "Oh, the neighbourhood you are now ruining?", but I didn't. So, the family from Texas has moved into that still unfinished house. I talked about it in a previous post because I was wondering if their teenage girl was a ghost girl or not. She said she had a twin sister and showed me a picture, however it's just her and the parents... and they seem to not even realize she's there. I'm still undecided if she's real or not. I thought if I saw her get on or off the school bus that would settle it. I did witness her get off the bus the other day, but then she had trouble with the front door that no one seems to have trouble with (not the parents, the workers, or the realtor) & her and her parents were hanging out on the front porch and the parents acted like she was there... so I'm still uncertain. So the neighbourhood was built with street lights. One in our north-west corner by the street, one down the street in The Dickensons yard, and one at the end of the horse shoe, as well as one in the backyard (next to the street) of the first house on Dogwood and some other one's on that street. They were part of the neighbourhood plan and design. When I was thirteen some burley, snarky men banged on our door and told me they were taking the street lights away unless we were willing to pay. Meaning we'd have the pay for the one in our yard, and everyone else would pay, if they had one in their yard. Dad said absolutely not, so the next day they ripped it out of the ground. No one else's lights were ripped out and I'm pretty certain they weren't willing to pay the $30 a month bill for it. Either they did, or someone said, "You can't just rip those out" but it was too late for us. So for the past twenty five years we've been lightless. We're at the beginning of a pretty dangerous curve and more people than I can count would fly off into the woods (where this new house now stands) or the house at the end of the horse shoe. They put up a guard rail and people slammed into that. They put reflective things on the ground. Didn't matter. They put large, reflective signs to indicate that the road curved towards the left. Didn't matter. Someone even slammed into the worksite of this new home (after the trees were cut, but before the house was there) just before summer this year. It was broad daylight. All I know is that it was getting dark two nights ago, and the new house had lights on. Then there were yellow flashing lights and noise, so I looked out and they didn't have lights on anymore and a power person was working on the pole at the edge of their property near the road. Then later I went into my bedroom and said, "Woah, what is all that light about?!?" There is now a street light attached to that pole. I don't know how the realtor (or new home owners) managed it since we'd been asking and telling the power company that there really needed to be a light there, because since they took the other one away more people had slammed into that area. Perhaps now that they've tried everything else, them saying it made them act on it. It's really weird to have that light there now. I like it, but it'll take some getting used to. It even illuminates across our yard to the other side near the garage. Dad doesn't have to keep the front door lights on for us anymore, because one can see just fine to get to the door, unlike before. It even lights up my bedroom at night when all the other lights are off and I'm lying in bed trying to go to sleep. Thankfully it's not that bright by the time it's coming in through that window, but still I'm not used it at all anymore. I suppose that's the one good thing that's come of this mess. If it was the realtor who had the street light put up. Even if it wasn't for our sole benefit, it's still nice to have light back after all these years.
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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