Never Trust Anyone Over 30

I live on a quiet street, dead quiet. In fact, if you even live in Pawtucket, chances are high you've never heard of nor could find my street w/o Google Maps.

That's OK. I've come to love the peace and partial seclusion.

This neighborhood used to have the familiarity and the loose association of Eisenhower middle class. That was all shot to shit by the 70's when everyone turned inward to do “their own thing” and it became harder to identify the neighbor down the street. Since no one was talking much anymore, it was challenging to know just who lived on that corner lot. We all adopted that attitude and no one cared anyways by then.

Bill and I are the last of the original “settlers” of this tract that was built in the housing boom after WW2. Hell, we aren't even that, we were the children of said veterans who bought up these Capes. Even so, we're still that last vestiges of that era. We are probably the oldest people living here as far as I know because you don't often see 78 year olds leaving the house much at all, unless it's by Pawtucket EMT. And I haven't seen any ambulances taking anyone away lately.

Bill and I are it...we have to be that last by now.

I know now how I'm regarded now by the kids on this street. When I was a kid, there was Mr Wrynn, a white, shaggy haired old guy who lived around the corner from us. He was friendly enough but had a bit of a limp, told fantastical stories about some era called the “30's” and for all I know could've fought at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. He looked like he could've because he looked that old. I've said this before because it's sort of true. Anything that happened before the year you were born is a rumor, a grainy black and white photo or a story that seems a bit dubious. So as a kid, when I looked and talked to Mr. Wrynn, I had some skepticism.

“All these houses weren't here back then, it was all corn fields here. The Morrisettes live in the first house built here by an Italian family who also ran a store out back in a smaller building.” Wrynn once told us.

I thought, No...that's wrong...these houses have always been here. They have been here ALL my life. And there was NO store in that garage behind Morrisettes, it houses two cars now!

My entire life of 9 years told me this so.

You get the point...

But, I know that today, I am now the current Mr Wrynn. I have the white hair and I favor my left leg and can tell stories from 50 years ago.

“1969? Isn't that when they invented the light bulb?”

**

This neighborhood has changed quite a bit since then. The influx of black and hispanic families have slowly dribbled in. But the quietness hasn't changed at all still. Geography and street layout still rules. You cannot ram 40 cars a minute down any street here really and this area is no good as a short cut to anywhere else either. This area is a maze and we're happily ignored.

Last night, a hispanic neighbor threw a summer party and when I started hearing the noise, I thought, “Oh shit, there's gonna be high energy Mariachi music all night long, with pigs and chickens roaming freely in everyone's yard and gunfire!”

But that didn't happen at all, the following did happen and it brought home the fact I'm Mr Wrynn.

There were about 15 kids at that party, a mixture of latino, black and white and they decided to have a soccer game on the street. You can do that here, as the street rarely sees a car going down it.

I tend to sit on my front steps in good weather while I talk on the phone and I watched as this gaggle of kids ran up and down the street kicking and passing the ball. I swear there must've been about 32 red card violations as they played this. Ain't that amazing? As an old white guy I now know some of the rules of that strange, foreign game.

Anyways, as kids do, they become more an more excited and forget themselves as they charge all over the street. One kicks the ball and it lands on my front lawn and they all come barreling in after it, falling ontop of one another as they try to wrest the ball away. They were happy, loud and boisterous until that final moment when they realize where they were.

That pile of kids got dead quiet, and slowly and respectfully stood up, staring at me like I was a feared predator who you NEVER take your eyes off of. One snatched the ball, in the fear I was going to take it away. I never moved off my steps though.

“Hey, it's alright. I don't care...and the score is STILL South 1, North 0.” I said. I was actually paying attention to that score as I spoke to my friend on the phone.

They remained silent as they backed away. They didn't trust this old guy at all.

Once they returned to the street, that game started up again and the boisterousness came back and I sat there, realizing that to them, I am that old. There is that huge gulf between us. I am that guy who I knew as a kid. To them, I could have been Clint Eastwood with the M1 Garand rifle , aimed at the kids, telling them to “Get off my lawn!”

I don't care about my lawn...in fact it's made of zoysia grass. It's like a shag rug and IT is an invasive plant that will cover up anything in it's path. The grass, not you, is the aggressor.

Mr Wrynn, back then, spent his time piddling around his garden, yard. I haven't reached retirement yet but piddling around don't seem like a bad way to spend my days at times.