thirty seven roses

Firstly, I’m sorry to disappoint, but I don’t have any photos to accompany my Neighborhood Walk post. I just kind of jumped on the bandwagon this morning.

I live in a suburban area in the North Hills of Pittsburgh. The acreage around my home used to be farmland. When I was little and played with the neighbor kids, we discovered an old rusted iron pipe thing that resembled a bike rack and we walked across it as if it was a balance beam. Our young minds decided that back when it was still a farm, they tied their horses to it.

The house my neighborhood playmates grew up in, two streets up and a sled ride away, resembles my own home nearly to the T except for an extra bedroom in the front part of the second floor. The wrought-iron railing on the front porch has a large W built into the rail but we had no idea what it stands for. Both homes have coal cellars and two rooms underneath the front porch.

It was always fun to imagine that our two homes were the only ones there while it was farmland, we wondered if it was an extended family and what they did and who they were. What did they think about? When they went to sleep at night in what is now my room, what did they think the future of their country would hold? Did their brothers go off to war? Did they come home?

It’s both eerie and fascinating to imagine the history of my little piece of earth while I look around and see children being born and growing up, teenagers hanging out under big trees, big trees being cut down, and new trees being planted.