Writers Pantry #6 and I'm feeling nostalgic
on this snowy Sunday. Here's something
from a few years back that comes to mind.,,
an idyllic bit of suburbia that's difficult to
find in life as it is today.
Submitted to Poets and Storytellers United
February 9, 2020
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It was the prefab suburbs, our house came on a truck
They put it together in a single day, with any kind of luck
Our view was of the farmer’s barn, we were in an open field
He’d determined selling out would be the greater yield.
And so the streets appeared and marched in identical rows
With identical little houses, except for color, I suppose
Our street was full of dreams, obtained with GI loan
But we all knew in 30 years, they’d be our very own.
Soon the babies came along, we raised them all together
They roamed the yards in safety; no need for electronic tether.
They knew well that any mischief, be it this, that or the other
Would travel up and down the street, passing from mother to mother.
We taught them all respect, and to obey the golden rule
When autumn came, we dressed them up and sent them off to school
The big ones watched the little ones as they walked along the way
The world was safe and life was good, in that suburban day.
A blog for the midnight epiphanies and idle thoughts of a hopeless wordaholic.
Oh yes, I remember the prefabs. We had them here too. And life here, then, was also much as you describe.
ReplyDeleteNice write Bev. Happy Sunday
ReplyDeleteMuch💝love
It surely was a different world "back then." Who can help but be nostalgic for simple, gentler times?
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. I grew up on one of those streets in what was called a 'war' house … referring to the thousands of houses that went up across Canada after the WW2 War, to house all the returning soldiers (and their soon-to-be families) who went to war as boys and came back as men.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, Beverly, your rhyming is sublime … but it is the sentiment (the loss of those simple by-gone days) that is amazing. You captured it perfectly … so much so: it brought a lump to my throat.
Thanks for your kind words, Wendy. Seems we're kindred spirits!
DeleteThe nostalgia for a world of order...we all have a bit of that I think!
ReplyDeleteWow, this is good. The last line in the first stanza is what stays with me. The sad part.
ReplyDeleteThe first in the demise of many little farms around my city which have become "housing additions".
DeleteI got a little chill remembering those simpler times even though I grew up in a wilder place, small beach town.
ReplyDeleteYou in a beach town, me far from the ocean yet we cling to those simpler times.
DeleteIt is a nice ideal to think about, and I'm glad you experienced this. Safety is perhaps one of the best feelings as it makes other feelings and experiences possible. But, of course, the world wasn't this way for everyone at the time. As at all points in history and now, whole groups of people were/are denied the privilege.
ReplyDeleteNostalgia... My younger days of summer was spent working on the farm with a little baseball thrown. Dad allowed us to play baseball. Thanks for sharing your memories and sparking one of my own.
ReplyDeleteThis brings to mind my childhood in the Dominican Republic. No prefab homes there (at least not in my village), but the sense of safety felt just like this.
ReplyDelete