The Street - A Composite Sketch (3)

Not a very long street, just off a major arterial, it is shaped like a question mark. At the conclusion of the bulge it meanders into another street. One half of the street backs onto a heavily wooded ravine, a neighbourhood treasure, though few of the street's residents quite recognize its value, nor make use of its propinquity. It cleanses the air everyone breathes, it hosts birds and wildlife and presents a treasury of wildflowers throughout the seasons. At one time the street, part of a larger suburban community, shared a small-town address. It has long since been subsumed into the greater national capital of the country, through a wide-ranging amalgamation of communities and even farms. The street and the houses on it were built two and a half decades ago. The domiciles are comprised mostly of single-family, detached dwellings, with a handful of semis verging on the main thoroughfare. Many of the residents are the original home purchasers. They would comprise roughly 50% of the residents of the street. The semis appear to have changed hands far more often than the detached homes. And those homes that have been re-sold have often enjoyed a succession of owners. The original home owners who moved into their houses when their children were small have mostly bid farewell to now-grown children. The street represents an amalgam of family types, and there is a significant percentage at this time, of retired people, singly and in couples who, though their houses are meant for family occupation, still opt to remain in their too-large, but comfortable and familiar and valued homes. It is a very quiet street, with little traffic other than those who live there. The house fronts are diverse, and attractive. Most residents take care of their homes, seeing them as their primary investments. Furnaces have been replaced, and air conditioners, and also windows. Kitchens and bathrooms have been remodelled, and people have added decks and occasionally airy 'summer houses' to the backs of their homes. One-third of the homes boast swimming pools, in-ground and above-ground. Most people take pride in their properties, and feel they must achieve lawns that are weedless and smoothly green. Some painstakingly remove weeds by hand in the spring, others hire lawn-care companies to spread chemicals on their lawns. Invariably, the people who look after their own gardens and lawns have superior gardens and lawns. Each house has a large tree planted in front; maples, ash,crabapples, spruce or pine, fully mature. This is a community that is truly mixed, representing people from around the world, come to Canada as immigrants, settled and making the most of opportunities open to all its citizens in a free and open society noted for its pluralism and dedication to fair representation. There are the extroverts and the introverts, those who prefer not to mingle, others who do. They are herewith loosely sketched:

This is the third part of the anatomy of The Street.

At the top corner of the street, another family of young people, first owners of that house, set on a very nice corner lot, before the hook on the question-mark shape of the street. He, a lawyer, just beginning practise and she happy to be a stay-at-home mom. An attractive couple; she very pretty and tall, while her husband, with his ready smile and easy manner, a head shorter and two heads more intelligent, seemed like the perfect pair, with their infant daughter and soon-to-be-born son. Both of Anglo-Irish heritage.

His practise in family and real estate law was established in the town, later incorporated into the city, and it was a busy practise. Along with his partners in private practise, he became involved in civic matters, and local charities, and the law firm was often to be cited in the small local press for its civic loyalties, which brought them even larger numbers of clients. He and his two partners soon were sufficiently prosperous to build their own stand-alone offices, a nice addition to the business activities on the main street.

He was a punctilious, meticulous personality, tending to become a traditional paterfamilias. Their lawns and gardens were looked after by professional gardeners, and a cleaning staff came in regularly to do the indoor maintenance and cleaning. When their children were very young she was a familiar with the other young mothers on the street with whom she would often pass away afternoon hours, children in tow, having coffee and chatting. She dressed elegantly, and spoke confidently.

She had groomed herself to a degree, and represented herself to the other women as an actor. Mostly she did television commercials, but that in itself was amazing to the other women, that one of their own appeared semi-regularly on television, regardless of the venue. Her children were always clean and well cared for, but she was a reluctant mother in the sense that she never quite felt at ease as a mother, and with her own children who, like most children, sought a certain level of independence.

She chafed at her husband's diktats, for he was clearly the bread-earner and as such the final authority in all matters. Including the type of food the family ate; no short-cuts for them, he disdained pre-prepared foods as unhealthy and unwise. If she on occasion brought into the house such food items high in salt, sugar and cholesterol, he would order them into the garbage, and she resented this. It made her feel inadequate. As though he were the perfect one and her choices intolerable.

As the children grew older she found it increasingly more difficult to cope with their personalities. In fact, their son had their mother's dull intellect, while being a perfectly socially adapted individual, a sunny child, good-humoured and a physical amalgam of both parents. His mother found it frustrating to try to understand what motivated him, how he felt and thought, and the two never agreed on anything.

Their daughter was possessed of a sharp intelligence, and she too had an easy personality and an attractive demeanor to match her emerging beauty and grace. Neither child seemed particularly needful of their mother. It was their father whom they both seemed to appreciate; it was his presence in their lives that gave them a sense of comfort and stability, despite that it was their mother who was most physically present.

The children were excited when their mother decided the family needed the presence of a companion dog to round out their image as a happy family. She chose a purebred Collie, a costly acquisition which her husband did not begrudge her, feeling that might give her a sense of purpose, training the animal, looking to its care. It was a lovely dog, not at all temperamental, but shy. Difficult, however to train, she said, frustrated. The dog hardly listened to her.

And it was her dog, not the children's. She made that clear to them, and they agreed, although they might have been helpful in looking to its care. She walked the dog daily, and it grew into a long-haired, lovely animal, graceful and beautifully proportioned. They made quite the pair, walking together; there is something to be said for that old observation that dogs often resemble their owners; or vice versa. One neighbour observed that the dog seemed brainier than the owner.

But the love affair just didn't last, and the dog was abandoned to the loving care of another eager and appreciative owner.

Nor did the marriage last. It had been steadily crumbling for years. And now that the children were in high school, both parents felt that pretense of a whole, intact family could be dispensed with. He agreed to buy her a house of her own, and there was one available a few streets away. She took a position with an elementary school near her new home, working in the school office, pleased with herself and her new life.

The children spent time living at each of their parents' houses. The girl blooming into a beauty, self-assured and bright. And the boy filled out into a tall, broad young man whose passion was cars and racing up and down the streets in a succession of noisy, burnt-out vehicles, alarming the neighbours on the street with young children. The father was indulgent, encouraging his children to be themselves and become what they would.

His daughter entered law school, his son, after a series of false starts, finally apprenticed himself to a cabinetmaker. The father still lives by himself, rattling around in the now-too-large house. He did begin a relationship with one of the unattached women who worked in the office of the law practise, but it didn't last. Pity, that.