Changes in "The Hood"

Metro Atlanta is not as wooded as it was when I moved here. As land is developed, the forests disappear. However, here in our suburb, we find ourselves in a sylvan setting. The house possesses a practical and pleasant windowed addition to the back, which we call “the sun porch”. During the winter, when very little tree greenery is present, the sun porch is sunny during most of the daytime hours. But, for the green portion of the year, the sunniest moments occur in early morning and late afternoon. The back of the house is shaded by trees, most certainly so by a huge white oak that is a focus of the back yard.
One concern we both shared was our interest in growing vegetables in a garden. We acquired this house in the dead of winter, and didn’t fully realize that the shade would be so spectacular as to make gardening impossible for lack of direct sunlight. If there weren’t neighborhood covenants barring vegetable gardening in the front yard, we would have had the soil turned over and well-seeded with our favorite vegetables that first summer we were here. We have had to make do with agricultural output limited to what we can grow in pots on the back deck, which receives a modest, but almost amount of direct sunshine. Herbs, tomatoes, and peppers are what we can maintain with some success. I might experiment with broccoli or some other vegetable that hits peak in middle or late autumn.
He and I took a trip to New Orleans at the end of October in 2004. He had never visited, I hadn’t been in years, and Halloween is a great time to visit that part of the country. Warm days, but cool nights, is what one can enjoy along the gulf coast at the beginning of November. Also, the celebration of Halloween rivals that of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras week, except that you experience only one-tenth the crowds down in the French Quarter. Upon our return from the Gulf Coast holiday, we found a sidewalk in front of our house, compliments of taxpayers and sidewalk builders contracted by the County. Since that time, it is a common occurrence now to watch all manner of neighbors enjoying walking or jogging up and down our suburban road. Mothers wheel their toddlers in strollers at any time during daylight hours. It is well-worth the money to see the sidewalk used, and used by young and old alike.
Prior to this time, there was not a sidewalk that extended the length of our road. One invited an element of risk by walking or jogging along the side of the road, because it also serves as a short-cut artery during morning and evening commuter hours. Even though “speed bumps” were in place when we moved in, the volume of traffic barely tapered off, according to one of our neighbors - - all that happened was slowing the commuters’ vehicles. Since we moved in, the traffic volume remains high, but the presence of the sidewalk adds an element of pedestrian safety. Few parts of this neighborhood are blessed with sidewalks. And, for me, having come from intown neighborhoods, I accept sidewalks as a necessity, or at least a normal part of life.
When the neighborhood was laid out, then first inhabited, back in the 1960’s, most of the new residents were local people who previously lived in the city of Atlanta, or who hailed from nearby small towns. In recent years, the demographics began slowly changing. In 1969, the neighbors would have considered it unthinkable to have blacks, Asians, or people from the Indian subcontinent living here. But, that is what is occurring. Minority groups are represented. As far as I know, we are the token gay couple on the street. We’ve only been here two full years, but we know of only one other such couple, and those men are not within yelling distance; they own a house down at the other end of the road. Two doors down, on the right, is a black American family, and another house down from there is black man, who lives alone. And, in the house immediately to his right is a family who might be of Indo-Paki origins. My guess is that they are Egyptian, but that is my belief based only on their lack of attention to lawn care - - Egyptians are poor at yard upkeep, what’s this? I might explain that in another chapter.