Stickney
Yesterday I promised
Paula I would take her on a walk in the stroller if she would just not cry all the
way home from Sam's Club. We had run out of diapers, and since diapers are our new
favorite food, clothing and shelter, we just had to go get more.
But Paula was tired
by the time we got out, and when she saw the umbrella stroller in the back of the
van, she lost it. It's like heroine to her. She gets a back-arching, head-cracking
jones when she sees it.
So when we got home
I kept in mind my contractual obligation to take her on a stroller ride. I figured
that, very often, when Joel puts Paula in the stroller and walks her around the
living room and kitchen for five to ten minutes, she goes to sleep. I'll try this,
I thought.
Fortunately for me,
I took the backpack as backup. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I set myself the
ambitious goal of walking to the Blockbuster, approximately seventy miles away.
This
would take me through the neighboring suburb of Stickney, Illinois, a town we like
to call Stinkney because over by where my in-laws live, the town of Stickney has
what you might think of as a memorable aroma of garbage dump, water treatment plant
and mysterious factory.
But closer to our
house it doesn't smell like anything at all. In fact, the only way you can tell
you're crossing from Chicago into Stickney is by noting that the houses are no longer
all 1950's identical brick drone houses with boring square lawns - like my house
- but all kinds of different-shaped houses on double lots with big yards.
People in Stickney
decorate their houses and yards with signs that say, "Grandma's House! Kisses,
hugs, cookies," and "Fly fishing!" The yards are full of little concrete
Dutch boys and girls bowing to each other, deer forever frozen under the shrubbery,
pink flamingos, masonry mushrooms, the occasional dilapidated boat. The effect isn't
always classy, but it attracts me anyway.
Stickney reminds
me of where I used to live, in Grand Junction, Colorado. The houses and yards express
the owner's individuality, and sometimes that means a lopsided frame house with
siding that looks ready for the ski slopes, surrounded by a big vegetable garden,
algal kiddie pool and hound dog asleep by the fence. But a block away there's a
brick bi-level Brady-family special, lovingly landscaped to rival the White House
rose gardens. And next door to that sits a two-story, mustard-yellow frame house
with a seven-foot pile of firewood stacked neatly by the equally mustardy garage,
which lies across an empty expanse of scrubby grass.
On yesterday's walk
I saw a house I'd never noticed before. It looked like a two flat, and on the ground
floor porch someone had hung small paper lanterns and lights on a string, as though
left over from the birthday party of one of those intelligent and clear-sighted
children you hope will like you. A cottonwood of matriarchal proportions shaded
the drought-marked grass, and a little flag fluttered its silk painting of a ladybug
over geranium and sedum.
In
front of the white curtains, I could I could see little beach-glass mobiles that
caught the light. Obviously there are no beach-glass-swallowing toddlers here.
Something
about the house made me wonder about who lives there, and how I would go about finding
out. I could pretend to need a phone for some fake emergency, but I'm sure my cell
phone would ring in the middle of that act. Besides, who would I call, and what
would be the emergency? It would never work.
I
could lurk around there on my walks with Paula until someone calls the police.
I'm
sure I'll never find out who decorated their house with beach glass and paper lanterns.
But I can't help wondering.
The
unfortunate truth is that I'll probably never find the house again, since I will
never again attempt to walk to Blockbuster, at least not with the stroller, at least
not hoping that Paula will go to sleep.
I
must have walked for a solid hour, pushing that monstrous stroller - it must weigh
at least as much as Paula, who's coming in at about 25 pounds these days - before
I realized that my darling girl was absolutely NOT going to sleep in it.
So
picture this: I'm pushing the monstrous stroller, backpack, snacks, water, baby
doll, video, diapers, etc. piled in the seat, and on my back is Paula. After 15
minutes like this, she was fast asleep. Believe it or not, it was less work to carry
her and push that thing than to push her in it. I'm never, ever taking her on a
stroller walk again. Stickney and its mysterious inhabitants will have to wait.
by Me
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