It's a lovely evening edging into night, and the neighborhood kids are out running back forth, playing on their bikes and scooters, or just running around in the safety of the cul-de-sac, and Fiorella has tears rolling down her cheeks. Yes, she too grew up in a neighborhood like this--a safe neighborhood, where everyone knew everyone else's kids and kept a bit of an eye on them, especially in the twilight.
She remembers the Hicks family next door, and Flemming Crimm on the other side of them, and across the street and up aways, David Rollins, my brother's best friend--for as long as his family lived there. Sometimes Dale Scarborough, from across the street entered into the game too, although he was a little older and his family held off from the rest of us for some reason.
What, she wonders, will these children--her grandchild and her grandchild's sweet little friends--be like when they grow up? Will they be able to keep in touch with each other? Will they want to keep up with one another or will some of them want to take take twisting roads contrary to the sweetness of their childhood?
Pssst! Don't tell anyone, but Fiorella bought herself a big, soft, smiling, leftover Christmas cuddly-bear when she was in Walmart today. She got tired of sleeping single in a double bed, as the song goes.
P.S. The other girls in my neighborhood were Elaine Hicks, Ellen Paule, and sometimes, Beverly Scarborough, whose mother insisted her daughter's name be spelled Bevely.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment