Couple of things I want to write about. 

Number one? Stimulus $$$.

Now, you (and I) would have thought that LBWN as an organization, doing all the good deeds it does –  stabilizing and revitalizing the neighborhood – that it would be right up there on the list of eligibility for some Big Money. Well, my friends, not exactly.

See, it would be different if LBWN were doing things citywide, then . . . maybe. But as I understand (kind of) the Governmentspeak, heretofore, therefore, etc., etc., because its scope is local . . . then . . . sorry.

But, perhaps there is hope. Now, this is just me talking . . . maybe one of the many funding sources is eligible and if they are, well, do I hear trickling down?

The other thing? The Alfons Art Gallery. 

Yes. There is an art gallery in the neighborhood. Art. Gallery. White walls. Wood floors. With actual art in it and on the walls. Who knew? I didn’t. And I graduated with a Fine Arts degree.

I thought that all the galleries were either downtown or in the Third Ward. How wrong I was. The Sisters of Saint Francis have as part of their mission, a commitment to the visual arts, and to honor that commitment, there is an open-to-the-public gallery (and gift shop) tucked away on the second floor of their HQ at 1501 S. Layton Blvd., that positively wreaks of sincerity. It’s not a place that feels intimidating. Hey, the Sisters were wearing black long before it was trendy.

Check it out. Seriously. 

Sorry if this posting is a bit of a downer, but . . . I wouldn't be honest if I didn't write about how the mortgage crisis has hit my corner of America.

The house next door to me is empty. Late, one night, I heard my neighbors coming and going, which wasn't unusual for them since they worked long hours and spent what little free time they had with their Church. I'd often see them rushing into their back door and within fifteen minutes, they'd be rushing out again, clothes changed, shirts pressed, Bibles in their hands. 

We exchanged waves. Chit-chatted over the fence about how our sons (same age) had shot up over the winter months, or complained about our daughters' don't-stop-backing-up-until-you-hear-a-crunch driving methods.

I remember when they first moved in . . . how excited they were about owning their first house, the plans they had, how happy they were with the size of the lot, the amount of bedrooms. 

And then, after 6 years, they were . . . just gone, and I'm left to speculate about what happened. Ballooning mortgage? Divorce? Job loss? I don't know. I just feel so . . .  bad. 

Why Layton Boulevard West? Click on the link below to see the video clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlRR9Q8unCk

Ick. It’s early March and . . . while it’s not really winter, it’s not really spring, it’s . . . sminter? Wring? Sprinter?

Whatever this is, it sure isn’t pretty. The snow, what’s left of it, is gray tinged with black and hard as concrete. Whatever was underneath it, has now resurfaced, but soggier, flatter and even more lifeless than it was when whoever it was discarded it – the Mountain Dew bottle, the McDonald’s Happy Meal (not looking happy at all!)

Lawns are brown. The sky is grey. But, hey . . . Opening Day is just around the corner.

Yes. Brewer Baseball. The true first day of Spring as far as I’m concerned.

One of the great things about living here, is that the ballpark is a nice walk, a short bike ride, an even shorter bus ride (why drive when you have to pony up for parking?) away.

When my husband and I first moved into our house, we went to over 20 home games. That was back in the day when we didn’t have air conditioning and it was cooler in the bleachers, and tickets were $4.

I remember my husband camping out for opening day tickets – our house became the starting point for many an opening day party. Who says you can’t drink beer at 8 in the morning?

Let me just say this, that by the time the first pitch was thrown no one cared about the slushy game day conditions.

That was BC – before children. And we had to become responsible adults. Before there was a retractable roof.

This year? We are empty nesters. Control our own destiny. Unfortunately we are past the point of camping out for tickets (been there, done that). Opening day will find us outside (weather permitting) on the patio, Bob Uecker on the portable radio, our brats sizzling on the Weber and if the sun is out and the roof at Miller Park is open, we’ll hear the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd.

The best part? No lines for the bathroom.

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.

I live in a house that is 120 years old. It’s been through a lot. Wars. Storms. Civil unrest. Christmases. Birthday parties. Deaths. Boy, think about it. How many arguments are embedded in the plaster? Bad vibes in the woodwork? Dogs (cats) buried in the yard?
Whose idea was it to put indoor/outdoor carpeting on the walls in the upstairs bathroom? Why had someone decided it was better put self-stick, vinyl parquet-like floor tiles over a walnut and maple hardwood floor? Who or what left those scratches on the back of the attic door?

What did the neighborhood look like when the house was new? Were there more trees? Was it more “country” than city? These were some of the questions I wanted answers to.

Detective work is in my gene pool (my father was a cop for 40 years). I started digging for answers. I became a regular at the library and the Historical Society.

My house? Built by a guy named Albert G. Eissler, who was a business man (commission merchant, accountant, bookkeeper) affiliated by marriage (his wife’s niece Margaret) to the Grede (as in Grede Foundry) family. Got that? I got it back in 1990 when I talked to Margaret, 92 at the time.

She told me that Albert was born in West Bend and that he had polio and walked with a cane. She said that he was, “ . . . a very nice gentleman, always driving his horse and buggy to work early in the morning.” She also said that she remembered my house. That there was a beautiful stained glass window in the front door (gone) and a built-in-buffet cabinet in the dining room (thankfully, still here.)

Albert was married to Emma Weiss, whose father owned a general store on National Avenue between 2nd and 3rd street. According to Mrs. Grede, Emma was on the stocky side, a homebody and people admired her for her beautiful head of hair, “ . . . too bad it was a hair piece!”

The lay of the land?
Well, on the southwest corner of 27th and National was the entrance to National Park.
52 acres of rolling hills, small lakes, a race track (horses), a fancy brick hotel and a roller coaster. And then, while sitting at a impressive oak table in the Milwaukee County Historical Society, with ill-fitting white cotton gloves that made my hands look like they should be on a cartoon character, I leafed through dozens of photographs . . . men in dark suits, with cinched-waisted, long-skirted women who posed in front of giant felled trees, next to rushing waterfalls . . . hunting parties in a clearing of white birch trees . . . outcroppings of boulders . . . pictures that looked like they came from somewhere else, Vermont? Connecticut?

No. My street. My block. This neighborhood.
The trees were felled. The brooks, the ravines, the streams, all filled in. What was rolling was leveled and laid out in an orderly grid pattern of streets and alleys.

Regret consumed me. I resented the Powers That Were. Boy, I would have given anything to be at that meeting when it was decided to steam roll the virgin wilderness to make way for progress. Where was that Time Machine when I needed it? Damn!

What was lost, clouded my view of what could be.

In the case of my house, what was gone could be replaced or restored. I could buy another stained glass window for the front door. We could remove someone else’s bad taste, sand the scratches out of the doors, patch the holes in the walls.

I couldn’t restore the ravines. Or the lakes. Or the trees. I could only do my part by restoring my little corner of the world. Maybe making sure that what the future holds for this neighborhood will make up for what was lost.

And when I walk my dog . . . and we get to the corner of South 28th and Scott? I can hear the former rocky stream, rushing underneath the sewer grates.

Saturday was Valentine’s Day – which made me pause for a moment and assess the state of my relationship, and . . . after 26 years, I think we are in a rut, and by “we” I mean me and my neighborhood.

We’ve let ourselves go. Gotten too complacent. I’ll be the first one to admit that over the course of a long, cold, snowy winter, I may have let certain things slide . . . the last time I ran a razor over my legs coincided with the last day I gave up on tending to my lawn care duties sometime in October. Why shave when I’d be wearing long pants for the next 7 or 8 months? Why mow the lawn (or pick up dog poo) when it could snow at any minute?

Both of us have gotten a bit sloppy in our appearance. I blame this time of year. It’s those winter doldrums. I mean, the snow, much like my big puffy winter coat, covered a lot of sins like, my fat thighs, paunch and lack of a fashion sense. In the case of my neighborhood? The snow covered the litter, the sparse lawns and buried all the things that everyone decided could wait until spring.

And there’s always the What ifs – this was not my first choice for a neighborhood.

There were other suitors – the trendy East side, Bay View, ‘Tosa – they were attractive enough, but . . . this neighborhood? Well, it needed me. And, dare I say . . . I found it’s bad boy rough-around-the-edges vibe rather appealing, especially when it came time for my kids to invite friends, who lived in Brookfield over for a play date.

Me: Sure, Tiffany can come over this Saturday. We live on South 33rd Street off of National Avenue.
Tiffany’s mother: Oh (long pause) okay.
Me: Is that a problem? I mean, time wise?
Tiffany’s mother: No. No. It’s just that–I didn’t know–(long pause)Um . . . is it–I mean, that neighborhood . . . would the kids be safe playing outside?
Me: Safe? As far as what goes?
Tiffany’s mother: You know . . . crime?
Me: Well, my kids haven’t been involved in a crime spree in at least a couple of weeks.
Tiffany’s mother: (silence)
Me: I was joking.
Tiffany’s mother: I mean . . . on second thought, maybe your kids could come over here?
Me: Brookfield? Ooo. I don’t know. You don’t have sidewalks.

After so much time spent together, every relationship hits a wall, and ours is no different. I just wish that whoever keeps hitting the wall – or in this case, the decorative fencing on Layton Boulevard – would stop.

There was only one time when I was ready to call it quits. To throw in the towel. It was during one summer and there was a house on our block . . . let’s just say the people who lived there were engaged in nefarious activities that spilled out onto the street and my lawn. And after a while, I got sick and tired of it. Long story short? I informed the MPD and one day, they paid my neighbors a visit (that would be Copspeak for a bust). My former neighbors now have a different place of residence, somewhere in Waupun and Taycheedah.

We don’t keep in touch.

The street has never been so quiet. Come spring, when I sit on my patio, with my glass of white wine, I'll hear soft swells of Mariachi music, smell the garlic roasting from the Thai restaurants down National Avenue, and I’m in love again.