Senior Daze

by Katie Bourg

About Katie: Having arrived in time for the Great (?) Depression, WWII, and all other 20th century problems, I am endowed with long and varied memories. Writing classes have long been my home away from home. Other people's stories are fascinating, and sharing is growth at its best. Hope you seniors will join me with your stories. Try it. You'll like it.

When I was a girl, I lived in a nice little desert town. Trees had been planted long before the turn of the century and the parking strip was well shaded by huge box elders. They diminished the heat of the day as evening arrived.

I thought about that last week when I found myself seeking the cool of the evening on my covered deck. There is a swing out there, and I use a fancy LED light to read by. But I wasn't getting much reading done. I was too busy remembering.

My father and I used to sit in just such a swing in the evening hours. Sometimes we were joined by his veteran cronies. Sometimes my mother even came out on the porch, but usually it was just the two of us.

He pointed out the constellations, which I never bothered to memorize. His discussion of politics bored me. And he groomed me for what.he thought I should be, which never quite turned out the way he planned. I thought he was too old to listen to, but a funny thing happened. A lot of what he said got filed away, where it spills out even now.

Beyond the parking strip was a very wide street and in the middle was a raised bed of lovely green grass with petunias planted at intervals. Very pretty. At each intersection, there was a lamp post--quite ornate by today's standards. It was fluted from the center, rising to an old-fashioned lamp. The type one thinks of when one sings about lamplighters. They didn't give much light, but were nice to look at. In the cool of the evening, it was such a serene setting.

I thought about those lamp posts recently, when reading about the decision to build several roundabouts on 172nd, just up the road from the 206 off-ramp from I-5. I thought about my father's comments too. "Obstructions."

This was such a pleasant old neighborhood. On two corners at one end of our block there were huge old stone churches, complete with bell towers. At the other end there was a third one. On the fourth corner was a well-known funeral home.

My father said it was good planning, for every so often someone tried to get around that lamp post ahead of a car going in the other direction with disastrous results. And while I never recall it happening in the cool of the evening, it did happen rather frequently in the heat of the day. Sometimes two or three cars tried to make the circle at the same time. The fluted base of the lamp post showed proof that this was not always successful. Since we were at the bottom of a hill, it seemed a good time to take on speed, which probably added to the problem.

Collisions were frequent. Roundabouts became wraparounds. This was especially unnerving when they involved the occasional motorbike. More than one cyclist found himself airborne and lying in the driveway of the funeral home. All the neighbors would rush out to see what happened "this time."

Fortunately, the local hospital was only a few blocks away. The town ambulance would come and the police would help load the limp victim, to be carried off to the emergency rooms. Sometime they even lived to tell about it.

The neighbors would then go back into their houses to wait for the next time.. And in the evening heat, we would all sit on our front porches and discuss the excitement of the day.

So now Smokey Point Blvd. is about to receive planters in the middle of our widened streets. And 172nd is going to have roundabouts. To my knowledge, there are only three churches between Lake Goodwin Road and Highway 9 on 172nd, and no funeral homes. It has become a busy business area, without houses or porches or swings. It's sad. But I guess that's progress.

And we don't get a lot of really hot days.