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June 29, 2016

It’s a cliché but it is the simplest things that give us the greatest pleasure in life. I was thinking about this the other night as I was sitting on our little handcrafted patio (oddly, I'm a far too infrequent visitor there) on a lovely, early summer evening.

It seems that often when I am sent back in time by some memory or other it’s with a little melancholy or sadness at moments lost; watching them disappear in the rear view mirror, never to be seen again. Not on this night! The evening sunlight hits the trees just so (dappling?) and the breeze is rustling through them like the hair on a baby’s head. All this and a martini too - ahhhh. 

 But that’s not all.

I think a big part of the overall sense of contentment (or at least not my usual creeping cynicism) that I enjoyed was the background sounds of the neighborhood kids enjoying this same evening the way kids should – but don’t always do anymore.

Did I mention that we have a LOT of young kids on our block? We do. We live within a long drive (golf, not car) of the Twins stadium in downtown Minneapolis and yet we have a dozen kids aged 1 to 15 on our block. And these are not just kids, they are really good kids with great parents. Our young neighbors (everyone is young to me, of course) are doing a terrific job with their kids. They are raising them like . . . kids, not miniature adults; they ride bikes, babysit, play in the sprinkler (and build snow forts in our interminable winters.) In short, the kids are enjoying a childhood like most of us older neighbors (of which I am among the most senior!) enjoyed but is all too uncommon today. Don’t get me wrong, not everything about our childhood was perfect – what is? – but I think most of us would agree that actually HAVING a childhood can’t possibly be a bad thing, can it?

I think I better try to sit out here more often listening to squeals of laughter, arguments over where second base is in my yard and the occasional yelp when someone falls off their bike. I suspect that in the blink of an eye our street will be very quiet as all the kids grow up and go off to find patios of their own. 

Autumn of life blues? Not today, Bunky, get out of here -  or join me on the patio! 


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