SHADY SIDEWALKS

           I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree

                                                                                                JOYCE KILMER [Trees] 1913 

     I have been gone from my Florida childhood home for decades.  I’ve made regular visits but as everyone knows, it’s not the same after a while; so many things change.  I’m one of those people who have put down deep and beautiful roots somewhere else, but feel that where they grew up is their true home. 

     On our way to visit Clearwater the past few years, we would sometimes wind through small old Florida towns instead of sticking to the interstate.  The first time we did this, a feeling of déjà vu came over me.   I felt emotional, and finally figured out that seeing the tree-covered sidewalks was the reason. 

     In the 1950’s, sidewalks provided my first taste of freedom.  That was something I hadn’t forgotten.  It was exhilarating to be on my own.  Starting when I was about nine, I could walk, skip, or ride my bike as far as my strength would take me, and it was the same for other kids.  We did have to provide the general parameters of where we were going, and be back for meals.  If there was a house where a person who was kind of strange lived, we were told to avoid it if possible or just pedal by as quick as we could.  If we stopped at a friend’s house and were invited to play inside, we had to telephone home and ask permission.  For those of us without watches, we somehow knew when it was time to go home.

      My earlier memories weren’t as clear until I noticed the sidewalks covered by live oaks in the old towns.  Suddenly I remembered playing under those trees when I was very young.   I played every day in the black sand behind my grandparents’ house with a child’s tea set that had belonged to my aunts.   My mother and I were living there temporarily because my parents had split up, my mother and I returning from Alabama.  We came on the train. 

     Divorce was kind of rare in those days, but I wasn’t very sad about it.  My young parents’ marriage was volatile and I was glad to return to this peaceful, tree-covered place.   Left to my own devices, I played until it got hot and it was lunchtime.  I would have a “necklace” around my neck – beads of perspiration mixed with mud.  Then I would get sort of hosed down outside and come in for lunch, or dinner, as Grandma called it.  Granddaddy had come back from his garden and was already seated at the kitchen table.  We had a hot meal unless it was ham or chicken salad, always with vegetables from Granddaddy’s garden. Grandma had a pot of water boiling so the corn could be cooked fresh from the ground.   I had to try all vegetables, but corn and black-eyed peas were my favorites.  After lunch I had to lie down or play quietly inside until the hottest part of the day was over.  

       A while later, in 1955, I was enrolled in the second grade.   My mother would drop me off before she went to work, but after school I walked the several blocks back to my grandparents’ house.  My route was Osceola Avenue, on a sidewalk covered by live oaks and old palm trees.  The people I encountered were always elderly.  They would say some friendly words as they walked by.   

     As you have guessed, the feeling that the shady sidewalks evoked wasn’t as much about the trees, but about my first awareness of beauty and security.   Those memories are where my true home is.