Growing up gator

Today, Esmond street isn't the place it was in the sixties.   Then, it was a bucolic enclave of frame homes and bungaloes.   There, we played hide-n-go-seek and rode our bikes until dinner time.  Then headed out again until long after dark. 

On Esmond, the tops of the elm trees arched and touched all the way down the block.  Now, they've long been cut down and re-planted with trees that have already grown tall - but which will never provide that same protective arch.  And although most of the houses from the sixties are still right there on Esmond - they're not the same. 

And 115th street isn't the same as it was in 1978 either.  Then, Dominic’s grocery store stood on 115th and Western avenue, where I worked after school and on weekends stocking produce and bagging chickens in the alley.  Dominc's is also long gone.   The parking lot where I chased shopping carts in the slush and ice is now just a bigger empty cracked and weeded asphalt lot. 

But many things have stayed almost exactly the same.  The old Walker Branch library still stands on the top of the hill on 111th street; a place where I learned to hate the Dewey Decimal system.  Devil’s Hill on Lothair; where we all crashed our bicycles on a hill that doesn’t look all that steep today.   Ridge Park and Bond Park.   The railroad stations and the 7-Eleven. 

Now I'm in Florida, and I look around and wonder how my children will remember their years here.

In Florida, they’ve spent their summers in the sun and humidity, and have learned to plan activities based on when it’s OK to be outside.   They watch the sky for the daily afternoon summer storms before they head to out to go fishing or ride their bikes.  They search for snakes and frogs; bringing them home to live in their bedrooms until the stink gives them away.  They've seen heat lighting and hurricanes.  They appreciate the role of the air conditioner in their lives.

Although their schools are single-story structures built of cinder blocks and poured concrete, they close if a hurricane looks imminent.   There are no hallways and the kids walk outside from class to class. Until high school, no one has a locker.   In the blocks next to the school, there are lots with moss-covered motor homes shaded under trees with low-hanging Spanish moss.  And the students talk at lunch about the when the mackerel or the tarpon are running.  

When they go fishing, they bring their masks and snorkels and dive for shells and coral.   They have contests to see who can catch the largest or the most snook.  They bring their cast nets and snag hundreds of shiny greenbacks in a single throw – dumping them on the piers as visitors from Long Island gather and gawk.   They give advice to tourists.   And they all know the exact number of inches a fish must be (or the range) to be legal.   They return sunburned and stinking and soothed.

They’ve accepted the transition from a their conservative Chicago church to a place where the choir is king and the cars park in the grass and where everyone wears a nametag displaying their hometown.

They see Goodwill outlets everywhere.  They make do with Dillards and not Nordstrom's.   They are able to spot homes built in the "Ringling" style.  They watch the cattle graze in the field down the street and next to the Wal-Mart.  They know who likes the Gators and who roots for the Seminoles.  And they are starting to like trucks.

Yes, it's different from growing up in Chicago.   But in many ways, it seems like a healthier and simpler place to be a boy.   And I hope that things don't change too much.