The old neighborhood past the church on 62
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- July 2, 2023
- 1235
I had two surprise visitors yesterday who made my entire week. I write about my porch so much that people know to look for me when they drive by. Brenda and her brother Gary, next-door neighbors from my childhood, popped in as I was porch sitting.
“I always told myself I’d stop in and say hi if Missy is sitting on her porch,” she told her brother.
“Turn the car around and stop!” he said.
From my perch I saw two people get out of a red vehicle that I didn’t recognize at first glance. As their faces came into view, my heart did a small leap. I gave them solid hugs, and we chatted for five to 10 minutes, as they were on their way to meet their sister Elaine (Mrs. Rennie, as many of you know her) for supper. They didn’t stay long, but in the short time we gathered on my porch, we reminisced about Berlin and the old neighborhood we lived in.
My parents are gone, their parents are gone and some of the houses on the street have disappeared as well, ghostly property lines residing within the confines of a thrift store, for which my love of betrays the beautiful farm that once was. I can still see Eva tending her garden, pinafore apron blowing in the wind, and Ed driving his tractor.
I told them I had seen Gertie getting her mail when I drove by the other day (hello Gertie!), and I longed to gather all those dear faces for a gathering at my mom and dad’s firepit. Except it isn’t their firepit anymore. My neighbor’s house has now been transformed into the offices for a local design company, and Mom’s gardens have long been taken out and replaced with an expanse of grass to mow.
People are what make a neighborhood, nonetheless, but the haunting outlines of what once was remain etched in my head.
I asked Brenda what she was doing in the area — she lives out of state — and she said she was here to visit her siblings in the summer. We chatted of what Berlin once was and what it now is not, that the magic can’t ever be recaptured. It only lives in the minds of those who traveled her streets on banana seat bikes and bought ice cream at the dairy on humid summer evenings — the ones who parked at the feed mill to watch the traffic crawl by or ran roughshod through Berlin’s little Pioneer Days Festival. It all seemed so much bigger in my mind. None of us want the ways of the world restored to that time, and I know I view it through the halcyon days of youth.
She noticed the beautiful clump of peonies that bloom each year was still intact on the property, the one that sits almost on the line between what was their place and mine, ruminating that bits of them grow in Virginia and elsewhere because they had split baby plantings off to share. My soul jumped a bit as I told her I need a start of that. I’m sure I could get a start from any one of my sisters, but to be able to take it from that ground, the one I rolled in the grass down the hill on and swung so high on the tree swing my dad made — the very plant my mom or her mom had planted so long ago — that’s the core plant I want my start from. Everything else is gone, yet dotted here and there around our area, still growing strong.
Her oldest son lives in Brooklyn. When visiting home — an area where most of the properties have 1 1/2 acres — he wondered why so many people mow vast expanses of grass instead of utilizing the space they have to grow an outside oasis. She pondered what he’d said and realized he’d taken a cue from the place she had grown up in. My mom planted her yard full of beautiful English gardens, and her mom Carol had planted bushes and trees and flowers that made the home cozy, protected.
Both homes flowed together in a neighborly sort of way, pathways leading to the other. I wonder if the property will retain those memories. I’d love to camp there in the dewy grass one night in late July and wake up to someone meandering those paths, the shape of them slowly fading away as the sun spreads her beams, chasing away the mist. The body remembers beyond what we can fathom.
I treasure that snippet of a visit because it brought me beautiful memories, ruminations on good things. I’ll hold that with me as I work my way through the week.
Melissa Herrera is a columnist, published author and drinker of too many coffees based in Holmes County. You can find her book, “TOÑO LIVES,” at www.tinyurl.com/Tonolives or buy one from her in person (because all authors have boxes of their own novel). For inquiries or to purchase, email her at junkbabe68@gmail.com.