The Street - A Composite Sketch (15)

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 fifteenth part of the anatomy of The Street.

They were of old Anglo-Irish background, roots established in the country in the late 19th Century with an original influx from the United Kingdom. They bore the evidence of their roots on their blond, stolid visages, proudly. They moved into their excitingly new, well-proportioned and up-to-date-accoutered new house as its original owners on a raw new street.

Had chosen their lot carefully, to back onto the cherished notion of the ravine. Although in the 23 years they lived there so far, they never thought to venture into it. Even when, years later, they brought a golden retriever they named Sam into their home. Not exactly, come to think of it, into their home. Sam had his very nice doghouse in the backyard and that is where he remained, but for the infrequent walks he was taken on, around the neighbourhood.

Not even when his elderly father, unable any longer to live on his own, moved in with them, and himself looked about for things to do to make himself useful, was Sam taken out for walks. Instead the elderly man, uncertain on his pins, would be seen in the winter, shovel in hand, chipping away at the accumulated ice at the end of their driveway. Or taking solitary walks in the neighbourhood. The resemblance between father and son was striking. The son and daughter-in-law were glad to look after his elderly father.

They were both outgoing, relaxed and comfortable with themselves and the world outside their shared domesticity. As is natural for a young couple settled into their own home, financially assured with well-paid jobs, they planned a family. She took maternal leave several times from her emerging upward-trajectory federal government position with its discreetly determined new affirmative-action plan to bring more women into officer-class positions.

He worked in general construction, on contract, through contacts in the trade, himself a veritable Jack of all trades, although his preference was always with concrete work. Still, he imagined himself adept at anything, from drywall installation to flooring, and never lacked for remunerative contracts. He had a good reputation, was valued because of his reliability, more than for the quality of the execution of the work he was tasked with. When something needed to be done, look no further.

His industry stopped there, was not extended to normal wear and tear in the upkeep over the years, of their home. Although he was often given casual contracts right on the street, by those of his neighbours who wanted their driveways patched, a stone patio installed, or new kitchen cupboards to replace the old, or a hardwood floor put down. Those, that is, who wanted to get these things done on the cheap, who paid him under the table so he wouldn't have to declare added income.

They got the workmanship they deserved. Even so, he was not faulted for anything. For not accomplishing really professional work, because he never claimed to be a professional floor installer, or stonemason. Not his problem, after all, if people came to him because they wanted the work done, but were unwilling to pay the going professional rate. They came to him for a less expensive alternative, and that's what he gave them; a fair enough exchange.

They had two children, a girl and a boy. Exuberant and polite children who, as they grew, played with other children on the street. And upon whom somewhat less parental discipline was imposed than for others, by their nonetheless doting parents. The entire family was somewhat less conventional in their social outlook and values than what might be considered the norm. Without intending to, they occasionally stood social convention on its head.

As, for example, when in high school the son, not academically inclined, took with alacrity to establishing a line of business of his own. And as a result he was busy and fulfilled. The neighbours swiftly concluded what brought to the neighbourhood a fairly steady succession of brief house calls, particularly as their own high-schoolers casually informed their parents that he was dealing drugs. Nothing serious; mostly pot.

Before long, vehicles other than the two owned by the family - a half-ton pickup for the father, a bright-red BMW for the mother - were noted to be permanently present in the double driveway. (In fact, one of the few upgrades the father brought to his property was a widening of the driveway. Clumsily executed, put passably utilitarian.) Over the years the vehicles and their owners changed as the live-in 'friends' of their son and daughter reflected changing partners.

Some of the neighbours privately abhorred these unorthodox and illicit activities, but none conveyed their opinions to the family, and a polite facade of friendliness was maintained, only remotely strained. Though the neighbourhood peers of the boy and the girl no longer maintained a pretense of casual friendships. Where other young people their age were planning university and college attendance, these two went their own way. They did not lack friends of their own, just not from the street.

The property became progressively more run-down. The roof finally replaced only when it became impossible to ignore the loss of its functional integrity as a result of inconvenient leaks. Poor old neglected Sam died. The girl brought home a miniature pug and Sam's doghouse was discarded, left out for trash pick-up. The pug was babied, its comfortable role as a house dog not exempting it from acquiring an irritable temperament that amused the family no end, annoyed the neighbours with its incessant snarling and barking hostility.

Eventually as the husband-and-father grew older he got fed up with the rough and tumble of working on construction sites and looked for alternate employment. Finding it at a home for seniors long established in the community. With them he took a permanent job as a janitor-handyman. He was respected, his wide-ranging capabilities valued by the administrators of the seniors home and he basked in the appreciation of his hybrid fix-it talents.

She had been steadily promoted, moved forward in the junior ranks of government bureaucracy and eventually made it to departmental director. Her husband considered her perfection incarnate, inordinately proud of her achievements. Older now, their physical conformations taking on a stoutness, hers became reflected in the over-ripe excess of forbidden fruit.

He was her slave. Her response was fondly accepting; they were demonstrative in their affection with one another, extended to their children. Who could do no wrong. They were, in essence, people content with their lives and their lifestyles. Well adjusted members of society, in their lights. Happy together as a tight, emotionally-balanced nuclear group. A successfully intact family. Who could fault them?

c. 2009 Rita Rosenfeld