Imagine climbing the ruins of houses fallen, maybe disrepair, or the last stage of demolition; then playing atop someone’s home where they once celebrated holidays in the summer.
Then let 30 years pass and watch the flora strangle the flora as they fight for sun amongst the trees run amok. One time, the Bronco could get by. Dad would pop the berm at the front, the first lane attempt at stopping the illegal dumping by blocking access to the old streets.
Children created a new world in the vacancy left by vague instructions to abandon all hope ye who live on the beach side of Cedar Grove. Kids on Seafoam, we didn’t build that.
“Don’t go in there, it’s private property. “
“That’s city property.”
“Devil worshipers are in there.”
Starting in the fall of 1985, I stared deep into its dark heart every weekday morning before 8:06 and then saw it again when I came home, in summertime, extending arms out over the Avenue telling us to hide under here.
Bus stop is on a sidewalk that seems like a building was there. One day a perimeter berm of dirt appeared and we could scale it and round around as the green mass of growth densified the opposite side of the street, like hiding some truth we can’t know. We could run around and round and as kids we thought we’d cast some spell and open some portal that would unlock some door that would restore this world that our parents talk about, of clubhouses and fences on the beach to contain the different peoples, the different colonies of bungalows that don’t seem to exist; Where a house or two still stood right on the street, until one day they didn’t.