There Goes the Neighborhood

     My neighborhood has always been pretty much the best neighborhood ever. It has the feeling of a small town in a big city. You need a cup of sugar? Well, why don’t you just hop on over to Debbie and Pete’s house and borrow one? Want to go eat food from all over the world this week? Walk around just outside the neighborhood and find Chinese, Thai, Greek, German, Mexican and home grown American only a few steps from each other. It’s definitely my idea of a Utopia.
     The people in the neighborhood have pretty much always been the same: Stella, the nicest old Polish lady you could ever meet; Marian, her next door neighbor, always watching at her front window to make sure you don’t step on her lawn; Mrs. Speilvogel, the scariest old woman in the world – she hates it when you step on her lawn, too, but she can be deceivingly nice; Pete, the master of all nature, and his wife Debbie (who makes the most amazing food out of that beautiful nature), and their three kids, who aren’t quite kids anymore; Big Jim, the alcoholic who sits in his car all day and smokes, and his son Jimmy; the Filipino family who seems to have a never ending stream of different people going in and out of the house, one of them being my brother’s best friend, Darwin; my next door neighbors Annie and Alan, with the two little girls of the block who everyone baby-sits, but nobody really wants to, Olivia and Kate. There's Celeste, the six foot high, wide as she is tall, loud woman with her dogs Duffy and Pal, obnoxious and unleashed all the time, and her fellow dog walkers who talk as their dogs frolick in the grass and leaves. Then, of course, there’s me and my family, and my four best friends in the world – Rory Johnson, Anna Tai Malone, Nicky Parker, and Ian Reeves. All right on the same block. We had the perfect thing going on.
     Today, all these people are still here, with just a few changes. Mrs. Speilvogel’s husband was whisked away one night in an ambulance and never came home. Deb and Pete’s two oldest are married, and the oldest has a little girl now, Nicole. Olivia and Kate are too old for real baby-sitters (everyone’s secretly relieved). The five best friends are still here, but we’re not really best friends anymore. The three of us girls are, but we’ve drifted away from the two boys. We’re all still friends, and we sometimes hang out in the summer, but not too much anymore.
     Despite most of the same people being here, some people are gone – moved away, died, gone off to college – and new people take their place. At first it was slow, a new family moving in maybe once a year. But now all of a sudden, it’s like an explosion of babies and little kids. Young couples moved in, some with kids, some without, and within a year there were at least six or seven new little kids running around outside with no clothes on. They’re everywhere.
     Now, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore little kids. I want to be a midwife or a pediatrician when I’m older, so don’t think I’m annoyed. I love it. But it’s created this weird barrier between the people of the neighborhood. There’re the older people, the ones who’ve been here for ages, who all stick together. Then there’re the hip young moms who organize “the best block party yet”, while their husbands sit around drinking a couple beers and their kids running around in the sprinklers. It’s like the younger generation is reforming the neighborhood. Besides that, it’s created a sort of barrier between the five of us ‘hood friends. We all have our certain kids that we baby-sit, and no one else really baby-sits them. We’ve all got our own families.
     This may not seem like a big change, but to someone who has lived in the same environment her whole life, it’s different. I’m not even saying it’s bad different (I’m so glad there are new little kids and babies to play with and get to know), but it’s different. Luckily for the new guys, the entire neighborhood is really, really nice. In everyone's eyes, more new people means more love to go around. J