The Hood

I live in the city of Buffalo, New York. In South Buffalo to be exact. It's a small, close knit community. Sometimes too close, but that's fine. It reminds me of small towns or villages in movies, in nearby South Dayton where my grandparents lived while I was growing up or East Aurora. A trip to Vidler's five and dime store with lunch at the diner. Oh my, drifting but those are stories for another time.

It's a warm spring day, sitting on my porch, I watch the neighbors going about their business (and mine I'm sure).

Across the street, a couple of doors to my left, the little girl that lives upstairs has just told her father that she is a big sister now and to stop calling her his baby. Now there is a crushed Daddy. Downstairs, I see their landlady laughing at the conversation going on above her.

Next door to those neighbors lives who I call the cat lady. She has only one cat but gives me the impression that she could easily become the owner of 20 more. She is the owner of the house and in the years that I have lived here, she hasn't kept a tenant longer than ten months. She tries to control the tenants lives...strange they don't like that.

Directly across the street there was an elderly woman. No, not what you think. She's still with us but now lives in the middle of the block with that con of a grandson. Poor thing doesn't realize that she's being used. Now her landlady is a wonder. She, her son and two huge dogs (no idea what they are except BIG) live upstairs. She has lived her all of her life and knows everything about every neighbor on this street.

The couple that lives on the left of her are a sad pair in my mind. He's a bully and she puts up with him. In the dead of winter I can hear him yelling at her. In contrast, downstairs is a young couple that have the sweetest little girls on the block. The youngest is a daily reminder of my sister and the reason for this little ditty. Her name is Marie but I call her Sarah. She has long dark hair that she flips because she can and dances to the music in her head that only she can here. She is the neighborhood's little drama queen. I first became aware of her when she was in her yard and wanted to get back in the house. I heard her yelling...."Won't someone let me in? Why is this happening to me?" She sounded exactly like my sister. She stands on the hood of her dad's car and sings her heart out to anyone that will listen and has every little boy on the street at her feet doing her bidding. All this and she is only five...better keep an eye on her dad!

We have a few doors down a gentleman that I call "Idaho man". He moved here from Idaho a year or so ago and has been, up until now, the most annoying person I have ever had the pleasure of having as a neighbor. He and his family have invaded the street. They multiply like rabbits and are everywhere!

And that brings me to LaRue. LaRue is my elderly neighbor who now spends her winters in the Carolinas and Texas. She has to be the most lovable woman I have ever met. She is in her late 70s, and still very active. She knits lap robes for nursing homes and bonnets for preemies. She watches her grandson on the island almost full time and still manages to deliver for meals on wheels. I have spend many summer afternoons on her front porch just gossiping about the rest of the neighbors. It amazes me that she knows so much about her neighbors just by sitting on her porch...but then so do I.