By Sherilyn Bailey
Dallas, TX – My neighborhood is undergoing a Renaissance. A renewal, a transformation is taking place. Some of the houses have been torn down to make way for newer, much larger homes. There is a new entranceway into our neighborhood, and signs that bear the new name of our neighborhood. The green spaces and medians are now decorated with trees and flowers and shrubs.
Until recently, my neighborhood was a place where you were just as likely to see a pickup truck in the front yard as a bicycle; where an old sofa looked just as at home on the front porch as a wooden swing. But the facelift is underway, and we are all cleaning up our acts. And while it seems certain that my neighborhood will never be the same, I only hope that somehow my neighbors will.
This is where I change the names to protect the innocent.
First, there's Vickie. She is the single woman on our street who has no visible means of support except the buying and selling of antiques and old stuff. She often spends the better part of the day at the Goodwill, shopping. Going to garage sales is her passion; having garage sales is her profession. Every time I think she is merely buying and selling junk, I remind myself that she is doing exactly what I'd be doing if I didn't have to convince a recalcitrant husband.
Then there is my uncle. He is the reason we live on the street in the first place. Just five years ago, my uncle called one day to say there was a house for sale down the street from him. Our days of renting a too-expensive house were numbered. My uncle is an 83-year-old confirmed bachelor who spends his days looking after one of his few surviving relatives, me. If I'm sick and I need a prescription picked up from the pharmacy, I call my uncle. If I need a ride to retrieve my car from the repair shop, I call my uncle. He can pick me up in less time than it takes to put on my shoes. And much to the delight of my two sons, there is a box of donuts in our mailbox every Saturday morning, thanks to their great-uncle.
Then there is my neighbor Velma. Velma talks about cleaning her house with pneumonia instead of ammonia. She tells me the sandals she bought for her granddaughter fasten with varicose rather than Velcro. She consistently starts sentences with "he" or "she," without ever referring to the subject of the pronoun. I rarely know who or what Velma's talking about, and a lengthy conversation with her often leaves me slightly dazed and confused - and always, always looking forward to the next time we can visit.
Velma is fond of poisoning rats, running off squirrels, and putting mothballs in her flowerbeds to ward off other unknown predators. She is the person who gives my boys McDonald's coupons and Sacagawea dollars for their birthdays and Christmas. And she is always good for an iced cold drink or Popsicle from one of the several refrigerator-freezers in her garage. Also, Velma is the person who started to call the police on my organic pesticide man because, with his long hair and beard, she was certain he was a drug dealer. For the record, he is not.
If my neighborhood has a common denominator, it is retired and lower-middle class. I know the new kids on the block will be younger, better educated and have more money. But they will never take the place of my neighbors.
Around the corner, retirement inns and undertakers await us all. I am helpless to slow the hands of time or stall the architects of change. And still I say, "Do not disturb," when it comes to the people nearest and dearest to my heart, my neighbors.