WINDOW: The Way Through

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

The Way Through

I forgot that they had my favorite Northend exit blocked off. Soaking wet from my run around the park and cold because I had stopped to take a few pictures of the icicles, I was already to the barricade before I realized it was there. I had three choices: I could be compliant and turn around and A) walk back up the drive and then up the hill to the water fountain then down the path to an exit. (No water in the fountain in Winter, in case you were wondering.) Or B) I could walk down the hills past the icicles, then walk around the Northside of the park to the subway entrance, a longer, colder route.

Or, wouldn't you know?, C) I could do what I would do if I was a twelve year old - find a way over around or through the barrier.

Luckily for me I was a paperboy. When you are doing a paper route, as I did from age 10 until I got an actual job at age 15, you see a lot of things. Open windows, unlocked garages, unlatched back porches, all kinds of things that in the hands of a youngster who was not terrified of his Irish mother might lead him into temptation. My observations were mostly for my own benefit. When you are doing the daily route, ninety five percent of the time you are on the streetside of the houses and apartments but when you are doing the collections you use the cut-throughs, the shortcuts and the squeezes. That way you can get from the Farr's house on Edgerton to the Thompson's on Orchard, then through to Winter Street and Rosemary Place for the Crouteu's without ever being on an East-West street.

You have to find out which yards are fenced tightly to the next and which have little gaps, maybe a piece of wood slat pulled aside, maybe there is a slim twelve year old's behind width opening where two fences come together. Maybe there is a fence, but there is a tall stump on one side that leads up to the edge of a convienently sloped garage roof to a crumbling stack of firewood. You find these by looking for the paths.

There is always a path to a shortcut. You have to look carefully to see some of them, there's a little browner stretch of grass, a bare spot just at the corner of the garage or the homeowner may have put up a few of those little foot-high wire loop garden edge fences as a deterrent which makes a very good signal - others have gone before you here.

There are no barriers that remain unchallenged by local twelve year olds, knowing that gave me hope of not just finding a way through but of finding their way through because it would be the shortest. Rather than walk all along the barrier looking for a gap, I looked for the tracks of the path. Soon enough, in seconds really, I saw the scuffs and tracks near the leftside corner. Ah! Striding towards it I looked beyond the fencing and saw, between the piles of old paving stones, a whitish trail of the dust leading directly, first to one side and then the other.

You can't see it in the top picture but there were three of those orange fences making a maze. You can just see the yellow rope some nice pioneer had untied before I got there. Once through the first two I had only to glance at the ground to see the signs to the exit.

This was just a small incident in an otherwise non-eventful Sunday run, but it brought back some really powerful memories of the old neighborhood, shortcuts and finding the way through made me feel really young again.

I'm getting tired of this winter even though it hasn't been a bad one, very little snow and bitter cold for mostly the days I was sick, but still, I was happy to see these ladies and gents heading North a few days ago.