My Backyard

You can go home again. At least you can drive by. If there is someone out in the yard you might stop and chat or you might not. Twice in the last week drive by neighbors of yesterday stopped to chat.

One was a Galligan boy and one was a Blanchette girl, once upon a time, on the street where I live. They grew up here when there were four houses on the street and the rest was woods. The four houses were all built in 1929. Until the sixties the neighborhood was four houses, blueberry bushes and paper streets.

My mom and dad’s house is the first in the row of four houses. They moved here when I was in college and so their house was never in my mind my home. My brother and four sisters did grow up in the neighborhood.

The second house is Barbara’s house now. The third house is our house that we have lived in for the past fourteen years. The fourth house is Sam’s house now. My visitors knew and remember when the neighborhood order was the Browns, the Galligan’s, the Blanchette’s and the Jones’s.

Though I did not live here then, I do know all those families because the four families were my last four stops on my Pawtucket Times and Attleboro Sun paper route.

A small SUV was driving slowly up our street. When they saw me at my dad’s mailbox they stopped and backed up. After introducing ourselves, the Galligan boy asked after my mom and dad and my sisters. He was driving by because he was visiting a Rhode Island friend and he had the urge to visit the old neighborhood. His siblings are well and are scattered around the country and his mom is living in Florida. I told him how Mr. Leroy had moved home to South Carolina and that Brandy and John live in the 50’s style ranch house now.

Saturday morning the dog and I were heading out for a walk and I noticed a meticulously maintained motorcycle cruising up the street. The pup sat down. That is what she does when she encounters something new and strange. The rider and passengers were “thirty somethings” enjoying the day. To my surprise, the bike swung up to the end of the driveway and stopped. The driver turned off the bike.

The passenger said, “I grew up in this house.” I said, “Hi, I’m Jim Hanley. My mom and dad live in the blue house and I guess we bought your house. We love it. How are your mom and dad?”

The Blanchette girl even remembered Mrs. Brown who was always baking cookies and sharing them with the neighborhood kids much like the way Mr. Leroy always had a stick of gum or a hard candy to offer the little kids.

We talked about how our parents are doing and about Joanne who is Ed and Barbara’s daughter and my sister Maureen who is about the same age as my visitor. We exchanged phone numbers and they motored away.

Now I have connected eighty years of neighbors in four houses. Somehow I know I will be getting a visit from the Jones boy. He is the only one who has not come home again yet.

Until next time.