Sidewalks of memory

Sidewalks of memory

At 3 PM my mom locked us outside so she could watch General Hospital in peace. Sometimes, on long summer days we were locked out starting from “One life to live”, then “General Hospital” through Oprah. That was about 3 hours of free time outside to explore the natural settings. Bellflower, California was not exactly teeming with conifer diversity but my brother, sister and I found a fair amount of encounters with wild life. Our immigrant neighbor friends, Rosa and Gabriel, lived next door to us; not in the 1950’s stucco house in the front or even the in-law apartment situated just behind. Our two-kid friends lived in a two-room junk closet adjacent to the in-law along with their mom, dad and baby sister Gity. Rosa wore a brightly colored lace trimmed A-frame dress with flower print to school while Gabriel wore grey slacks, black polished lace-up dress shoes and a long sleeved and striped button-up.
Although we lived just next door Rosa and Gabriel never came over to play in our house. I am not exactly sure if it was because they were not allowed or if they were not invited. I do however, remember Rosa’s mom always close behind them with Gity at her hip. She kept them close as if something or someone might snatch them away at the moment she turned her back. Rosa’s mom did not speak a lick of English to us but we were welcomed in her home. I shrink now remembering being next to her stove munching down scrambled eggs and warmed tortillas with my sister. Why didn’t I think at the time that this could have been a meal taken from one of their bellies? However though, I realize my childish instinct to partake in any offered ritual of feasting was actually, most likely, the best way for me and my sister to gain the trust from Gabriel’s mom. I still don’t understand though why we never invited them to our house. We lived just right next door, in a 1950’s stucco house on a corner lot. My mom stayed home with us and my dad sold car parts for Datsun. We had a swimming pool after my mom’s parents died. Relative to standards of wealth of past and present I think we would have been considered middle class today. There was something that divided us from the Macias’ but it seems it was more than income bracket. Still, we spent many of our summer afternoons playing ball or hopscotch on the narrow walk leading in the back of the house to their home. Our favorite idea always, was to have a mystery club. There was plenty of action in our neighborhood and we were on the front lines to catch a criminal. We climbed up walls to peer in windows of suspicious homes with inhabitants known to be involved in the trafficking of illegal substances. At 7, 9, and 12 me, my sister and brother were small enough to tuck in between trash cans behind a nearby bowling alley to spy on disturbing characters loitering next to parked cars. We made observations, compiled data, and made verbal reports to each other back at our club house, the crawl space behind the Macias’ pad. It wasn’t much but a cabinet and a torn branch from my parents’ cypress bush propped up as a “Christmas tree” adorned with tiny colored papers by Rosa’s mom. The tree served not only as a headquarters mascot but also allowed the Macias’ to be part of our holiday tradition despite their being forced to follow rules of the Jehovah’s witnesses by their host family.
We spent our afternoons between the Macias’ walk, our grassy front lawn creating fanciful scenarios out of our daily neighborhood observations, or slipping down to the end of the block furtively buying a single piece of gum with a chance coin to share between the four or five of us or a jolly rancher which was harder to share. Afterwards, we cruised our bikes down bustling Alondra Avenue just in time to hear the lock click on the garage door, time to jump inside for tomato sauced meatloaf or noodles before hitting the hay at 7:30.
Now I am a mother of 2 boys that I am raising with my husband in a fog, smog and car congested city with an “Urban Adamah” just a rock throw down our street with squash leaves poking between chain links onto a beer bottle crashed sidewalk. My 2.5 year old is known for taking orders for “café-chinos” and “bagels with cream cheese” from his recycled half dismantled kid’s kitchen in the backyard. We watch spotted spiders spin silky webs from a back porch alongside the peeling paint chips with deafened ears to the perpetual double chirp of the corner signal three doors down from our walk. My weekly juggle consists of , approximately, 35 hours in a lab, 5 hours on a bike commuting, 1 hour of PTA meeting, 7 hours of running, 58 hours trying to get into the mindset of the Pokémon that will annihilate Godzilla only later to befriend him and save all of mankind, and anywhere from 30 to 49 hours of sleep. I wonder how my kids will remember their time growing up. Much of their time is spent in the care of loving teachers and caregivers. We share the task of raising these children together. Will they remember long relaxed days outside free in the sun to explore abandoned cars and glass on railroad tracks? This might not be their story to share. Still, I hope whatever amalgamation we have placed them in serves to stir up wonder, joy, hopefully of sense of empathy, and a bit less mischief than those afternoons between Rendalia and Alondra on our pursuits to stomp on the drive-thru strip at a burger joint making phoney orders for fries by Michael Jackson. They say kids these days need more free time to develop a creative mind. Perhaps the urban jungle was O.K. for me and will be O.K. for them in a completely different and similar way.