I remember visiting Sadie and Gumbah when their kids were little and they were living on I think it was Alamo Street, and it was indeed child-centric. Life indeed seemed to revolve around the kids, and then there were the friends of their kids, and by extension the parents of the friends of the kids.
I remember thinking way back when I was a kid that maybe the adults had the streets but the sidewalks were the kids' world. To an adult the sidewalk was just something you walked on to get somewhere else, but to a kid it's where you met your friends and played your games. It was where it was happening. I remember that Alamo street was ruled by some tomcat and all the kids, and by extension the parents of the kids knew all about his latest comings and goings.
We moved into our bungalow in Chicago when I was four years old. The houses were built all at once sometime in the twenties, and the people who had moved in then, raised their kids and now were empty nesters seemed awfully old. We were the new generation, the Schadts, the Violas, the Chrones's, the Schroeders and we kids gathered every summer night when the days were long to play Red Light. Green Light, Paddy Cake, The Fox ain't here. We all knew each other's parents, but those older people were like shadows to us.
It was indeed Alamo where we lived when we first moved to St Louis.
ReplyDeleteThe cat was "Bud the Cat" Seeing it in writing, I now wonder if he was named for the beer. St Louis being the home of Budweiser and all. Big grey tabby with a huge personality. He would play outfield when we played whiffle ball in the front yards and,yes,on the sidewalk. He'd perch on the roofs of parked cars and taunt the dogs.
I love cats - how they despise dogs!
ReplyDeleteEven more than they despise dogs they despise other cats who are strangers.
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