Our House, In the Middle of the Street

My side of Vine street was a little higher than where the cattle trucks parked on stock day. The sewer drain which collected all the rain water run off was in front of our house. This low point was where the asphalt road and sidewalk joined, and a thick metal grill kept you from falling into the drain. It was the lowest point on our side of the street, but the road raised slightly to the middle of the street, so about half the drainage would go to the other side, and half would come to our drain. [I suspected this is also where the water passing through our basement would end up.] You came up a slight incline from Broadway to where Vine Street leveled for a while right in front of our house. It then climbed more sharply, to Washington Street. The top of the hill offered a side walk which could be used to great advantage on a tricycle except, there were several places that were broken apart, and made navigation somewhat difficult. I was ordered not to ride in the street and that was generally a good idea, so I got pretty successful at maneuvering around the broken bits of concrete.

There were seven houses on our side, and five houses on the opposite side. Old man Elkin's house actually faced Broadway, but it was so far back from Broadway, it's back fence ran along the Frazer's house next to our house. Mr. Hill's house was next to ours, followed by the Well's, Powell's, and Hatton's houses. Occasionally there was a trailer placed at the end of the street, and would be tucked behind a 5-6 foot retaining wall that made a perfect spot for throwing snowballs at passing cars during the winter "out of school" days. We would have several days a winter where school was canceled, and this was always a bonus living in Kentucky.

A little ring

Turning onto Broadway or Washington eastward, the first street past the railroad tracks was Vine Street. Six more streets followed in a fairly symmetrical order forming a series of equal sized blocks. Let's see, there was Smith Avenue, Jackson Street, Park Avenue, Franklin Street, Ashland Avenue, and Johnson Street. On past Johnson Street, Broadway and Washington ran together forming the Irvine Road. It was generally believed that Washington Street became Irvine Road, but I knew that it was really the junction of Broadway and Washington forming a Y type intersection. Washington Street followed a higher ridge out of town as compared to Broadway because starting at Jackson Street, you had to climb a long stretch of Broadway to get to Ashland Avenue. Washington Street also had yellow lines painted down the middle which made it look much more official, whereas Broadway narrowed to a little country road before it sliced into Washington.

This was my neighborhood. Looking down from the air (by satellite now) it must have seemed like a ladder leaning against the earth with each rung being one of the streets. Each block was usually cut in half by a fence row which separated the blocks right down the middle. This produced two sides, each house facing the street which named it, ours being 25 Vine Street. I often thought that our street must have been named after the large number of grape vines that grew along the fences. There was also honey suckle, mulberry, wild strawberry, milk weed, black berry, red roses producing thorn bushes, and lots and lots of poison ivy! Mam maw and pap paw lived on Jackson Street, two blocks further up Broadway. It was just a hop, skip, and a jump to the cinnamon toast and coffee. It was just a chain I often thought. A chain that ran through pap paw and mam maw, to dad and mom, to me.

A little ring

Encompasses our lives

And many generations

Link the rings of theirs,

Thus forming a chain

That is without end.

Goethe