

I never much cared for my neighborhood. Been living here since the Great Depression and don't much plan on leaving any time soon. Now that the college has been built next door, life has gone to shit. I never seem to get any sleep at night with parties going on till real late in the evening and revelers wandering by my first-floor bedroom screaming as though there was a strong wind or something outside throwing everyone's voices all over the place. The neighborhood used to look real nice and lots of people really cared about keeping up there lawns. I still care but I dont do it very often mostly because the kids from the college always trample it either way. My neighbors either got too old or just plum gave up for no discernable reason.
I have two dogs that like to make their presence in the nieghborhood known. They bark at anything that moves and are a constant bother to drunk college kids wandering home from the bars around 2 or 3 in the morning. I keep them out there for that specific purpose--I love hearing the kids scream like murder when they hear the dogs come after them. You can always tell which male voice is hanging out with which female voice from who consoles who. Its a game I play with myself before I fall asleep. I'm lonely.
I had 3 kids come and go through this house, and I think you can really see that in a houses outer appearance. Places where whiffle ball homeruns used to get knocked back down to earth by the unyielding paneling of the wall. Stuff like that. Hard to say that I want it there, but I'll be damned before I go and fix it. Once the marks are gone, it will be like the kids are erased from my life completely. Call me sentimental, but I'm not quite ready to make complete peace with that. Karen having gone only a few years ago and all.
The neighbors, like I said before, are all getting up there in years. They all have some clique going where they don't much talk to me any, since they all go to church together and pray a lot and toss around Jesus's name in casual conversation where it don't much belong anyways, at least in my opinion. They have old beat up sedans in the driveways and they get their papers every morning and then you don't much see them. There was a guy used to live next door I liked to talk with every now and again but he moved out years back when his son had to go to rehab and he wanted to live a littler closer.
I guess I didnt say all that much about my neighborhood per se, but I think you all probably got a good enough idea of what it looks like.

