I grew up in a pretty diverse neighborhood. In elementary school, there were so many people from different backgrounds. I live right across from the neighborhood park. I used to think the park was huge! Realistically, It was a decently sized baseball field with some playscapes and swings. I didn’t have many kids around my age that lived near me so I was normally at the park by myself. I definitely remember a rabbit burrow hidden in the grass and almost broke my ankle as a 4 year old walking into it. I still look for it to this day and it’s never gotten filled. Every 4th of July, several families would bring their fireworks to the park and everyone who lived along the park would put out their lawn chairs and watch from afar.
People from across the neighborhood would come to see them. Every winter a man down the street has the biggest light show on the smallest house for Christmas. I’m scared to see his electricity bill. So many cars stop to see the light show. I always love to watch them too. Every spring/summer the park would be filled with baseball families watching their 6-14 years miss almost every ball at practice. Even today they can still get on my nerves because they make it hard to park in my driveway. On days they didn’t have practice I would go out there to ride my bike in the baseball diamond. I would take my dog out there to have him run as much as he could so he could tire himself out. After school, I would meet my friends at the park and play or do homework together on a nice day. As I grew older, the park really went downhill.
No one visits as often anymore. The city is coming to less and less to help clean up. It’s up to the people in the neighborhood to plant flowers and help pick up trash. The playscapes are older than I am and there’s rust everywhere. I never went inside but there’s a small neighborhood church down the road. It used to be packed with people, now I only see up to 10 cars in the parking lot. I’ve lived in the same neighborhood my entire life (25 years). It’s so interesting because it feels like I live in a weird border. On one side you have a semi fancy country club and around it, very nice fancy houses.
On the other side I could tell you someone just got robbed at the gas station on the corner and I’m positive a serial killer lives and the motel across the street from it. My parents would tell me to always go to the right side of my neighborhood and not the left. The left was too sketchy. There is also a lot of wild life where I live for some reason. We can get deer, skunks, possums, even wild turkey once every blue moon. Every so often there would be a small handful of kid that would go to the park but it was never the same as it used to be. The park is decently taken care of but no what it used to be. Although I can’t tell if that’s because I’m older now and realize it wasn’t good in the first place, or the city doesn’t care enough now to make it a better place.
