the neighborhood crone
April 24, 2008We get a lot of traffic on our street. When people are just passing through, they generally take the three blocks with no stop signs as an invitation to test their acceleration skills. The exception to this, not including the people who live here, are the drivers creep along the road looking suspicious.
We’ve had someone kicking in our door in the middle of the night. On a day we were leaving for vacation, I came home early to pack and was out in the backyard talking to my neighbor while a young man walked down the alley casing every back door on the block. My car has been broken into so many times I’ve forgotten when I lost count.
I spend a lot of time lounging in our porch swing, and when people go slinking by in a car I don’t recognize, I do the glare. I look at license plates and makes and models. I’m also not very good about introducing myself to new neighbors, so I’m now realizing that when they have friends over and are filling them in on the people in the neighborhood, I’m probably being described as the weird one who sits on the front porch and gives dirty looks to strangers. Awesome.
Yeah, this is kind of why I don’t want to move to East Nashville. Not because of the crone-stare you give, but the other stuff you mentioned. I live in a great area of M’boro, for chrissakes, and am suspicious of people I see out and about all the time.
I think some of it comes from growing up in a shady area of Chicago. I was taught to always be suspicious.
But people kicking in your door?? No thanks.
See, that’s why I live in West Nashville. I only have to worry about murderers.
But seriously folks, when I was at home all day I always kept an eye out. And I give the evil eye to suspicious characters. And there are a lot of them, most of which I suspect are just lost because the twisty winding streets in my ‘hood are confusing as hell.