Let’s face it, my neighborhood, like my family, is not perfect. Everybody has cousins, aunts, uncles who on any given day can drive one ca-razy, right?
Do I wish that the video store had a better sense of display? I do. But, you know what? The hodge-podge of cardboard cut-out movie stars, dried hanging plants, and flashing neon, just like my 86 year old great-aunt who likes to wear plaids with her polka dots, accessorized with pearls and a shear scarf – it works.
During the warm weather months, the neighborhood, can get boisterous. Like my family around the patio. Everyone has something to say and whoever says it the loudest gets the conch. Living off of a busy thoroughfare may have something to do with the noise, just like my genetic make-up. Hot-headed Irish and stubborn Polish. Loudness comes with the territory.
Sometimes there are disagreements, differences of opinion, hissy fits. And somebody vents their frustrations on, oh, let’s say, my garbage cart. Oh, well, it’s only plastic. Easily hosed off. Or, a person’s expressive nature takes hold and, well, while some see the cement retaining wall as a retaining wall, to others, it’s a blank canvass. Not to worry. That’s why they invented Goof-Off and the I’m Sorry line of Hallmark Cards.
And, just as my aunts, uncles, cousins, related to me by blood or by marriage can drive me crazy, they can surprise me with their warmth, caring, sensibility and selflessness. Like when the neighbors got together to make a blighted corner into a beautiful garden.
Shea Park. The daffodils and hyacinths should be poking through any day.
Or when I get interrupted from my gardening by a passer by, who thanks me for making the street a better place.
No, my neighborhood, like my family isn’t perfect. Show me a family who is and I’ll show you a family with problems. At least we have the decency to lay all our cards on the table. Even if they are mostly jokers.
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