The Street - A Composite Sketch (13)

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 Thirteenth part of the anatomy of The Street.

When they moved into their new house their girls were babies. Only years later would their son be born. They were both, the parents, rarities in these parts in an otherwise-transient population. Actually from the area, descended away back in time from immigrants escaping the potato famine in Ireland. Settlers of the land of the Ottawa Valley with their faith and their hard labour.

He had been hired, directly from university, with his Bachelor of Science degree, to work for the Canada Revenue Agency, Customs and Excise. He liked the work, its discipline, and the collegiality of the department personnel, and performed well. She stayed home, a young mother, raising her young brood. Extended family lived nearby. They were comfortable on the street, in their house.

When their son was born, their family was complete; two girls, one boy. The man of the house was always solicitous of the woman of the house, his wife. She was pretty, good-natured, a relaxed and competent mother. Not much of a cook, pity to tell, and even worse at housekeeping. but there are more important attributes to living a good life, after all.

He was moderately tall, well-built, an oddly unsymmetrical face, and walked like an old cowhand, legs splayed, comically bow-legged. His locomotion was informed by that fact. Nice enough fellow though, getting beyond the smug satisfaction. She, on the other hand had a subdued, quiet personality, a perfect foil for his.

As they grew older the girls, a bare ten months apart, grew prettier and more unlike one another. One tall, athletic, with dark blond hair, the other small, dark and lithe, with long, straight black hair. Hard to tell whom each resembled. Difficult to choose which of the girls was more admirably endowed.

As for the little boy, he was his father's son. A still, solitary child who loved playing outside by himself, cheerfully independent. As he grew older, the other boys on the street, all older than he, inducted him into their street hockey play and he never looked back. When he was halfway through elementary school and his sisters in high school, their mother returned to the paid workforce.

She took a clerical position with Health Canada. Their house was more slovenly kept than ever, but none of them were bothered by that. The exterior was always well maintained. And the father did double-duty, increasingly cooking their evening meals. Fast food was a popular solution also, more than occasionally. None of them appeared to suffer for it.

By the time the boy entered high school, girls began flocking to him, following him. One girl or another from his classes would walk home with him, to his parents' wry amusement. His sisters had their own admirers, albeit not quite so numerous. The older girl was interested in becoming a physical education instructor, the younger a physical therapist.

And with their parents' encouragement, adjusted their academic agenda accordingly. All three children did well at school, the boy somewhat less so than his sisters. Something that sat oddly with their parents, but in the end accepted as the way their inherited endowment of intelligence marked them. They were A-grade students, he remained mired in B-minus.

Their father had acquired the requisite number of working years to qualify for early retirement. Thought about it for a year, then took the plunge. After which, still young at 58, decided to do contract work with his former department, at a lower grade level, which bored him dreadfully. After a year of that, gave in to complete retirement.

Began to attend college cooking courses. Took a greater interest in the family cottage. Started to think of doing upgrades to the house. A gold-plated retirement plan is very enabling. And his wife, not yet ready to stop work herself, continued to earn a salary of her own. That too is personally empowering.

The family decided to take up horse-riding, as a shared recreational interest. All but the father did well with their lessons. He fell, broke a leg, was in a cast, then crutches for months. End of the horse experiment. None of the children in any hurry to become independent, get married, move out, their father has taken on the role their mother never quite managed.

Fussing over their schedules, cooking for them, doing the food shopping, even the occasional clean-up in the house. The family owns two older-model vehicles, one of which the girls drive, sometimes their brother. The mother uses efficient public transit to work, just as her husband had used to, common to public servants in the area.

They're a happy, well-adjusted family. caring deeply for one another. Always have gotten on well with their neighbours; well respected and respecting others. More introverted, still, than extroverted. Although they seldom discuss it, they have on occasion mentioned they would not put on sackcloth if their neighbours on either side moved, however.

The constantly-barking dogs with their neurotic temperaments on the left annoy them no end, as does the rather unorthodox arrangements of that family's solution to a degraded marriage. And to the right, the traffic resulting from the neighbour's resourceful drug-dealing son rather upsets their notion of neighbourly propriety.

Hard to believe there was ever a time when the youngsters of each family played together, attended the same school, went out trick-or-treating together on the street. The adults rarely speak to one another, now.

c. 2009 Rita Rosenfeld