“Don’t try to make me grow up before my time…”
Today is overcast and dark and the air has a damp chill. It feels as if rain is pending. I hope so. It has been too long since the last rain fell.
Last night was perfect for movie night. It wasn’t too hot or too cold. Goldilocks would have found it just right. The crowd liked Breaking Away and they clapped when the Cutters won.
I lived in a project from the time I was five until I was sixteen. It was in my small town and back then the word project had no stigma attached. We never thought twice about calling it the project when we talked about where we lived. Even now, when my sisters and I remember growing up, we start our memories with, “In the project…” The houses were all duplexes made of wood. The front yards had lawns, bushes and flower gardens. We lived in a corner duplex so we had a huge front yard with a small hill leading to the sidewalk and the street. All the backyards had clotheslines, and each side of the duplex had two of those clotheslines. In the middle of the backyards, between the sets of duplexes and behind the clotheslines, was a grass-covered hill, perfect for little kids to sled on in winter and to slip ‘n slide on in summer. The project was loaded with kids of all ages. My best friend lived up above from where I lived, and she even lived in the same duplex where we had first lived. Everyone in the project was a neighbor. One of our favorite neighbors lived in the house next door and another favorite lived right beside us in the same duplex. Their side was a mirror image of ours. A few neighbors were not so friendly, but only a few.
When I talk about my childhood with someone, I usually have to explain the project, defend it somehow, as most people tend to think of projects as block after block of brick high-risers in the poorest part of any city. They never think of them as I do: a place filled with kids, ready playmates, with a grassy field of grasshoppers which jumped in front of you when you walked, an old tree for climbing, blueberries for picking, woods for exploring and a swamp perfect for catching pollywogs in spring and for ice skating on in winter. It was the best place in which to grow up. My sisters and I agree on that.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: a swamp, blueberries, Breaking Away, chilly day, clotheslines, cloudy day, dark day, duplexes, grasshoppers, growing up, hills for sledding, lawns, the project, \exploring
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
July 26, 2015 at 12:12 pm
It has been a rainy and quite cold day here but since that also kept the flies calm I rather enjoyed it 🙂
I grew up in what was known as Gothenburg’s slum 🙂 Nonbe of us understood that when growing up and I loved that part of town. If I tell people today I grew up there they always think we were rich because that’s what people living there now is 🙂 I’m not suer we have yuppies today but that’s the kind of people who lives in my old neighborhood now days 🙂 🙂
We knew all in our neighborhood and all people, even the alcoholics kept an eye on us so we didn’t do anything stupid. To me it was the best and most safe place in the world but the rest of the poeple in the city saw it quite different 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
July 26, 2015 at 12:52 pm
Christer,
Your flies are persistent insects and they stay around far too long. I am quite happy our fly season is so short.
My project looks exactly the same as it did so many years ago. I ride by it on occasion just to check it out. I wonder if there are as many kids as there used to be.
Nobody had feelings one way or the other about the project. It was just a place to live. Because the houses were close enough and the yards interconnected, nothing went unnoticed. We were always safe.
Enjoy the day!!
July 26, 2015 at 12:19 pm
What used to be called “Projects” are now called subsidized housing. In NYC there are lower and middle income subsidized housing. However, a neighborhood by any other name is still the same. Since I was a kid clotheslines have been replaced by driers, porches and open windows by AC and back fence communications by texting. The big housing projects are being torn down in some cities like Chicago and being replaced by rent subsidies. The neighborhood parks and playgrounds that used to surround them are also gone. It’s a very different world today.
Another triple digit day here in North Texas under a big high pressure area that’s keeping us dry and hot. A normal summer day.
July 26, 2015 at 12:58 pm
Bob,
This project was for veterans only. It was not subsidized housing back then, but it was cheaper than single unit houses.
There are still a few clotheslines in my neighborhood. My yard has too many trees to put one up, but it would be great to smell the fresh air on sheets and pillowslips again.
I live in a neighborhood where people talk to one another, kids play on the street, and we keep an eye out for each other. I guess it is the small town way of life still. There are even parks and playgrounds.
We are dry but don’t have the heat. Today does feel like it might rain.
July 26, 2015 at 1:05 pm
Glad to hear your audience liked “Breaking Away.” How could they not? One of my very favorite films of all time — even after many, many repeat viewings.
July 26, 2015 at 1:11 pm
im6,
I knew when they cheered that they all liked it. I’d forgotten how young Dennis Quaid is in it.
I still can’t believe they had neither seen it or even heard of it.
July 28, 2015 at 4:38 pm
A fine film choice for the final Tour de France weekend!
My dad grew up in the projects, too, although in Bridgeport, it was known as Father Panik Village or just The Village and was the sixth-largest housing complex in the country when it opened in 1939. He shares similar fond stories of lots of kids and space to play baseball and lots of eclectic people. It must have started getting a little dangerous in the early-to-mid-’60s, because the family left The Village then. Sadly, it became one of those notorious, neglected slums as time went on until it was finally razed in the late 1980s/early ’90s. But The Village of my dad’s youth (and the one celebrated in Facebook groups, apparently) was definitely a joyous place to grow up.
July 28, 2015 at 5:36 pm
sprite,
Especially at the end when he yells, Bonjour,” to his father.
That sounds just like my project though it wasn’t all that large as there were only 12 duplexes (I think), and it remains today looking exactly the same. My sisters say it was the best place to grow up, and I agree. Families had multiple children so you always had a playmate your age. Up at the top was a never used parking lot (people parked in front of their house instead) where we roller skated, and the hill we were on was the best place for sledding.
We never had a problem saying we lived in the project.