Dead End Kid
I grew up on a dead end street. At the end of the block, detached garages with
cloudy windows flanked an alley that took off to the south. North of the street, the alley became back
yards. We had two lots. One abutted those back yard lawns, and the
other contained our house. It was a
pre-war attached garage home with a steep wood-shingled roof. There were several stairs between the
driveway and porch. Our neighbors’ chain
link fences ran from the northeast corner of our property to the cross street a
block away to the west. A small church and
parsonage graced the northwest end of our street, across from two houses on the
southwest corner. The rest of the south
side held a huge garden. Its perimeter
was a Mulberry grove that rose about ten feet above the street. One corner of the garden held a weathered
two-story house a block away on the low hill beside the alley. The house faced south onto the main street.
My brother and I used to sit at our
door watching the mulberry trees in the green light of storms and smell the
fresh rain mingled with the dust on the screen.
We harvested lilacs in our back yard and made leaf roses by pinching our
thumbs and fingers around spirea stems and dragging them outward. As older kids, we played football in the
church yard and kick-the-can under the street light. It was pretty cool around there.
