The Neighborhood

My mother-in-law said that two inventions killed the neighborhood: the automatic dryer, and air conditioning.  Perhaps you can see her point, or perhaps it needs a bit of explaining. 

Before the dryer, ladies used to hang up the clothes in the backyard.  They had long, and sometimes complicated, clotheslines.  Laundry day was a ritual that started early in the morning with sheets, towels, clothing – and even underwear(!)  put on display for the neighbors to see.   Housewives hanging up and taking down row after row of unmentionables were just a few feet away from other housewives doing the same thing.  The result – TALKING over the backyard fence!

In the evenings, everyone fled from their hot, stuffy houses as soon as dinner was over.  The adults sat on the front porch.  The kids hopped on their bicycles and rode up and down the sidewalk, where they passed other kids who were jumping rope and playing four-square.  The result – adults waving to each other as they watched their kids, and kids joining in each others’ play. 

Voilà – The Neighborhood!

Now this may be too simplistic an explanation of neighborhood shrinkage, but all I know is that I grew up in an actual Neighborhood.

Ohio evenings were much cooler than daytimes (not like Texas!), and I loved playing outside then.  I could hear the crickets chirping as darkness approached.  The doves would be going at it: “Coo – ee – coo – oo – oo.”  Sounds of skates scraping on concrete, satisfying “boink, boink” of a rubber ball, sing-song chants of friends jumping singles or “double dutch”:

“Down in the valley where the green grass grows. 

There stands Sally, as sweet as a rose. 

She sang, she sang, she sang so sweet. 

How many kisses did she get last week. 

One jump, two jump, three jump, …”

All of this freedom of play happened within the comforting (but preoccupied!) gaze of our parents, and was boundaried by: “Be home by the time the street light comes on!”

Of course, our parents—who had by this time emerged from the porches and were standing by twos and threes, talking—didn’t break off their conversations and go in the minute the street light came on.  From that moment on we were on “borrowed time.”  As long as they stood there, we were still free to do--whatever. 

As dusk descended into darkness, the street lights illuminating the neighborhood in a rather spotty fashion, my sister or I would run inside for a jar and begin chasing “lightning bugs.”  We stood very still in the darkness, watched for the brief flicker of greenish-yellow light, pointed it out, raced to where last seen, saw it blink again, reached out – and grasped the slow-moving insects carefully in one hand.  

 Slowly, gently we put the other hand on top, moved the open jar into place, shook the bug till it dropped to the glass bottom, and snapped the lid on the jar.  It was such fiendish delight to stare at the poor thing as it walked around over the glass, dazed and confused, and weakly signaling its light again and again to its companions.  No use warning them!  We were off to hunt again!

“Linda, Lorraine!  Time to come in!”

We had been noticing our Mom –with our peripheral vision -- standing under the street light, and finishing her conversation with a “Well, it’s getting dark.”

We knew there was five more minutes.

Then, suddenly she was on the porch, and the magic was over.

“Lorraine!”  “Linda!”  Come inside now!

My sister and I liked to take our nightly catch with us into the house.  We set it on the top of the dresser as we put on our PJs, then watched the jar blink and glow after Mom turned off the bedroom light.  When we were little, we thought the light display would go on forever.  As we got older with jaded “experience,” we knew that the jar would smell bad in the morning and the bugs would be dead.  We stopped keeping them.

Oh well, there’s always another hunt … tomorrow night!