On The Street Where We Lived

One of my favorite books of all time is "To Kill A Mockingbird". Growing up in a small town in the south, I have always felt a true kinship with Scout and Jem. Their entire neighborhood was their playground, as was ours. These days kids don't get to know their neighbors the way we did when we were young...like how Scout and Jem knew Miss Maudie Atkinson and Miss Stephanie Crawford and the way they wanted to know Boo Radley. It was the same with us. We knew the Moores and the Nidiffers and the Hagerstroms, but who we really wanted to know were the Lavinders. Our street was named for that mysterious couple who lived in the big house on the corner. It sat waaaaay back from the street (or so it seemed), surrounded by enormous trees and perfectly manicured shrubs. The pedophile-axe-murderers who maintained those shrubs were what kept us off the property. We were terrified of them. There was only one day a year that we dared venture as far as the front door and that was on Halloween, and then only in the company of an adult. The door was answered by the butler, and he always informed us in a manner befitting Boris Karloff that they didn't give out candy. Of course, we weren't there for the candy. We were there for a quick peek...into the house...and at him. It's what we lived for. But we never got to see the Lavinders. Mr. Lavinder soon died and Mrs. Lavinder sold the house and moved away. I was about ten then. It was both a blessing and a curse that the family that moved in had a gaggle of kids, with a daughter our age, so the house that had always intrigued us soon became part of our familiar world. We no longer had to give a wide berth to the drive-way. We could ride our bikes right down it, past the spot where the old men had stood menacingly watching us. We no longer had to survey the yard from a distance. We played in every corner of it. We didn't just see the house from the front door. We knew every nook and cranny. But as when Boo Radley came out of hiding, we also no longer had a mysterious entity to stoke our imaginations. Instead, we had a greatly expanded playground and a much safer environment. Because thank goodness the new owners had able-bodied sons to do the yard work, so the pedophile-axe-murderers were forced to move on.