What I See Now vs. Then

You may know that we moved on the first of the month – a new beginning for a new year. Yeah, we’re goofy like that!

We lived in our last place for fifteen years. It had served us well, especially in those early years. It was newly painted, fresh as a daisy, and as private as possible, considering we shared a wall with our next-door neighbor.

There was nobody below us, nobody above. In fact, we *were* the above and below. The style is called a back-spit. I’d never heard of that before. It’s three levels… you walk in on the landing and then it’s up to the bedrooms and bathroom, down to the kitchen, living area, and laundry. There was also a cool room under the stairs. We called it the Harry Potter room. It belonged to our cats… along with a half dozen boxes with stuff we couldn’t name… because… we didn’t even *know* what was in them. I mean, at one time we did. You know what I mean.

When we first moved into that place, there was a hoppin’ bar on the corner up the street. They didn’t have enough parking. Street parking was only on our side of the street, unfortunately, and Friday and Saturday nights were especially crowded with cars and people outside our door. People sometimes barfed on our tiny strip of lawn. We could only hope they weren’t driving.

Across the street was a park. In the spring and summer, the street outside our door was crowded with kids in cleats and parents with lawn chairs and coolers getting ready to watch the game.

Weekends were bumper-to-bumper out there… right outside our door.

And I mean… RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR DOOR. There was a step, the sidewalk, and the street. We may have had relative privacy inside but outside? Noperdoodles.

At first, it didn’t bother me so much.

Later, I tried to ignore the neighbor who worked on his car in the street. He was *always* out there doing something… revving, testing the stereo, hoisting it up on blocks, or anything that made noise. Did I mention it was at all hours of the day and night?

Just to give you an idea of how close the cars were to our front door… I found this photo from a winter or two ago. See that hind end of a white car? That’s where he’d always park. Literally, right outside our door.