Are there still neighborhoods around where the kids play “kick-the-can?”

That was one of the favorite games for the long summer days when the light was fading and making it hard to play baseball (or softball) either because it was a little more difficult to see or because there just weren’t enough players to make the game work well. I suspect that kick-the-can was a city type game where there were not big spaces for baseball as well. The playground of our neighborhood consisted of the streets, alleys, and our yards and the yards of our neighbors.

Kick-the-can had elements of hide and seek or even capture the flag with the IT person trying to find and tag the hiders who would then be considered captured unless one of the FREE players managed to kick-the-can to free the captured players. With multiple players it could be played with multiple IT players and multiple FREE players.

Of course there were certain grouchy neighbors whose yards were not used for hiding!

For baseball, home plate was right below our kitchen window with first and third bases along the fences to the right and the left. Almost every house had a fenced in the back yard for a pet of some sort. Second base was at the edge of the lilacs at the back of our very small yard. That meant that the outfield was actually in the alley where in some cases a fly ball went over the garage roof on one side of the back yard so it was difficult to see it coming without yelling at the outfielder stationed there to warn him/her that a ball was coming that way. On the other side of the alley, our back area neighbor also had a fence so we generally claimed a ball that got over that was an automatic homer.

As our group got a little older (and trusted a bit more by our parents) we moved the ball game to the street in front of the house, but that was a bit of a problem as we were interrupted by vehicles driving on the street. There were also times when some visitors to the area parked their vehicles on the street necessitating care not to hit a ball direct at such a vehicle.

jtr

From my early years, I have a preference for having an alley. Garbage and trash cans were in the alley so did not mar the view of the front of the house. Not only were there no such cans, there were also no garages to be seen. Most garages were directly on the alley with but a few that were such that you could go from in the house to being in the garage, which I believe most people have appreciated with an attached garage.

When I moved to Marshall, I discovered that there were not a lot of areas that had alleys. Most of those are in the somewhat older sections of town. So far in the four places I have lived here I have not had an alley behind the house, but only my fourth residence has the garage part of the front view of the house. That also means that about a third of what would be a front yard is the concrete driveway.

What happened to the alleys? I suspect that folks decided they would have another 10 feet of property rather than devoting that to an alley even if it meant that at least one day a week they’d have to have a trash/garbage can out there.

Note that I did not level a suspicion here that it was the greediness of the construction industry that was a major factor in the alley’s disappearance.

jtr

However, I suspect there was at least a little greed by developers who designed whole plats where there were no sidewalks. Oh, I know, I have friends who do not have a public sidewalk who say they never want one. One of the big complaints is there is no place to put the snow that is plowed off the street in winter, but there are other complaints as well. Even having to sweep the walk off now and then is a reason apparently. With a sidewalk you may get folks walking the dog who are not using pooper scoopers!

I have had the experience on City Council with a developer who did not want to put in a sidewalk for a building. I expressed my opinion. The developer said in essence that I was wrong. I lost the vote.

One big reason for sidewalks is a safety issue. There is a sidewalk on my side of the street but none on the other. There are no kids on this side, but there are young kids on the other side and there is a school bus stop at the end of the street. So I suppose it is natural for the kids to get to the bus stop by walking on this side of the street until they get to the corner. I agree with that. Especially on some dark mornings, it is certainly safer to be on the sidewalk than walking in the street.

jtr

Two more observations. Many of the areas where there are neither alleys nor sidewalks and the houses are close to the street — also are now plagued (i.e. the owners are likely plagued) because they have only a single car garage, but they have two working people and hence need two cars parked off-street.

The second observation is that I have noticed there are still folks who have lots of nice porch furniture, but it is very seldom that I see it ever being used. When there was no air conditioning, lots of folks in our neighborhood when I was young often sat outside in good weather. They were really what kept the kids under control. You could not do much of anything bad because you knew it would be reported to your parents and it would bring immediate corrective action.

Until next time: Oh, Fiddlesticks!