The Neighborhood

 "You never forget the neighborhood kids you grew up with"

When I think back to my earliest friendships, I think of a picture of my 8th birthday, with my two neighbor friends, Joy and Patty, sitting around the table in their glasses, smiling at me. A painfully shy kid who never attended playgroups and preschool, I didn't have any friends and I didn't make friends easily. I already had anxiety by the first grade, an imaginary friend named "Mary", and other issues I don't care to mention. Elementary school brought the worst memories of my young life, and junior high wasn't any better. But in my childhood, I had the comfort of my neighbor girls, and that meant I was going to have a good summer, because I could always count on them to be outside, and we did a lot of playing.  All of our siblings were friends, as we lived on the same block-our three houses joined together by my big house in the corner.  Patty's mom was a teacher, Joy's mom was always home, and my mom went to work every day, so we had at least one mom around the neighborhood keeping watch while we all ran around the neighborhood block. 

Joy had a giant willow tree in her yard, and a wonderful swing set and "tree house", in which we would hold our "lady bug club" meetings. Patty had a big old garage where we volleyed with a ball over the roof, then rooted in her freezer for fudge pops and popsicles. We would ride our bikes around the block for hours with the older siblings, playing "cops 'n robbers", and stayed outside all day, playing in our sprinkler, having water fights, and ending the day playing tag in the dark. These were the golden days of my childhood-with the neighborhood kids, the long summer days, and the carefree life of hot sun, a simple garden hose, easy friends, and green grass. Next door to my house was an old dilapidated church where we would play ball. Home base was the step by the door, third base was the big maple tree. I forget the rest. Later it would be renovated into a home, but we had some of the best times playing ball in that lot!  We ran around all day long, only coming home when our moms turned on the porch lights or started calling names. No one wanted to hear the names! That meant we were in for a bath. 

In the fall, as the multiple maples in our neighborhood would start to drop their leaves, our yard became the favorite place to gather. Everyone would grab their rakes and begin to design the "leaf house." It was a large maze of sorts, with walls made of leaves and we would all walk through it when it was complete. Then huge piles were constructed for us to jump in, and we would line up one after the other, jumping until we were all covered in leaves and exhausted from laughing. 

Winter time was ice skating out at Patty's family pond in the woods, and everyone came out for that. It was an idyllic scene you can only imagine in a Rockwell painting. We were those kids walking through the woods with skates, sitting by bonfires, drinking cups of hot cocoa. Ice skating was a big part of my childhood, and oh yes, that second trip to the emergency room was also me, I just remembered! My dad used to make us a backyard skating rink, and that's where I got those scars on my chin, and probably a concussion, by today's standards. We used to get a lot more snow back in those days, and I would build big snow caves in those giant piles by the street and sit out in them with my crackers. Later it was cross country skiing through town with my high school bestie, Sandy. 

I was a child who loved to spend as much time outdoors as I could, always mystified with the sky, whether it was night star-gazing or day, cloud-watching.  I grew up in a small farm town, just one block from the elevator and the railroad, and the sounds of night trains would rattle our big old home's windows. I would settle in deeper under my quilt and let the sounds of the train lull me to sleep. I still love the sound of a train, especially at night, and when I step outside, I still always look up at the sky and find shapes in the clouds and I'm amazed at the stars. There are some things that never change when we grow up.  

I am so grateful for the neighbors God gave me. I really consider that time in my life to be some of the best memories I have of being a child. Joy's mom was home the day I needed to go to the emergency room for a large cut on my arm. She drove as Joy prayed for me in the back seat. I was nine years old, and it was the first time someone had prayed for me, at least in that way, and that really stuck with me. Joy's family was what I would have called "religious" at the time, but I would learn later that they were church-going Christians. I always had an interest in church as a child, and I took my little 10 year old self to the nearest church on my purple banana bike to a daily vacation bible school one summer. It was there that I would receive my first bible and learn about being "saved", as I would hear Joy talk about sometimes. I would watch Dorothy, Joy's mom, hang her laundry on the clothesline in her crisp white canvas shoes, and I would think to myself, "I want to be a Christian lady who does her laundry like that one day." I believe now that it was the Holy Spirit in me, already determining who I would become, as well as all the other traits that were already forming in me from all the other positive examples in my life.  

Patty and I would spend many summers together, even after our young childhood. Patty was learning gymnastics and dance, and would teach me what she learned, so I became pretty good at gymnastics, and loved to make up dances with her. We played a lot of tennis, listened to music, rode our bikes, and probably the funniest thing-jumped on an old mattress behind her garage. I'd call it the early trampoline! Whatever we did, we were two peas in a pod, just enjoying life together at every age. Patty and I got together and wrote stories, poetry, drew pictures, and watched movies. I already loved art, but Patty cultivated it in me by taking me to stores to buy paper supplies and our favorite thing-stickers! We would go to the theater and watch the same movie 6 times and then come home and recreate the dance scenes in my backyard. Patty and I had similar humor, and spent a lot of time cracking each other up. We were two years apart at school, so when she graduated ahead of me and left town, I was pretty lonely without her. It would be years before she would reenter my life again, but when she did, it was like she was never gone. We have a lot of inside jokes and the humor starts over like it never stopped. Patty has always been that steadfast friend that I knew would always be a part of my life, no matter what. Even though we live hours apart and we don't have the time to build our friendship like we did before, I am praying that we will one day be neighbors again. We always joke that we will be sitting together in rocking chairs on one of our back porches someday.

My neighborhood friends will always have a special place in my heart. They truly brought out the best in me and touched my life in so many positive ways. I am so fortunate to have had their influence and presence at a time when I was not sure of myself and was fearful at school. When we decided to relocate to my hometown so we could start our own family, we came back "home", because we wanted our children to have my experience. Never did I feel the "you can't go home again" feeling so strongly as I did those ten years. While we had a couple of nice people next door a few times, we learned that very few people live in their homes for extended years anymore. We moved into our home hoping for long term neighbors, but we ended up getting about 8 or 9 different people in the houses around us, and not all of the experiences were positive, and certainly not what I had in mind for our children. Not desiring a subdivision life just for the sake of neighborhood kids, we relocated to the woods, where my husband had a wonderful childhood experience. Our kids had freedom to run and play and imagine, but with each other.  Although I wish they had experienced a lifelong friendship as I have with Patty, and have the neighborhood memories that I share with those friends, nothing can replace the wonder they have seen by living here. 

Patty's parents are gone now, and Joy's parents are still living next door to my mom, the only remaining residents of our original neighborhood. The Young's, where my sister and brother's friends lived, have passed on, as well as a few of the other neighbors that were once there. It's not the same bustling, playful  neighborhood as it once was before, but I can only hope for a future filled with Joys, Pattys, Eileens, Ellens, Loris, Tims, Jeffs, Toms, and many many more happy kids who play together.