The Move The two neighborhoods that I grew up in are Rogers Court and Hamar Drive I lived on Rogers Court from the time I was born until I was 11 years old. My family and I then moved to Hamar Drive. The two neighborhoods were both in Pleasant Hill, but they were very different in many ways. Rogers Court was extremely friendly; it had small houses and was a very close-knit neighborhood, not to mention my best friend lived across the street. Hamar Drive had snotty people; big houses and no one knew anybody.
Rogers Court! Just hearing the name makes me smile. The neighborhood was just like a family since everyone knew each other and the parents looked out for each others children. The street had a cozy look to it.The front yards looked like a huge kids playroom. The houses on Rogers Court all looked the same because they all had the same floor plan, and built by the same people. All the houses were one story with huge backyards.
Each house was a different color, like red, brown and one was as blue as the sky. Every front yard had a different tree from the next one, they all had different bushes and mail boxes.My yard had a tree that dropped little round balls that had little things poking out of them, we called these things monkey balls. You couldnt run across the yard bare foot because you would step on them and they hurt.
When driving down Rogers Court children everywhere. The boys were usually on their bikes chasing the girls and the girls were playing with dolls or just talking. When all the kids got together we would usually play freeze tag or play in someones back yard.At night we would play laser tag. It was a lot of fun because it was dark and we would run around and shoot each other. The boys always would team up against the girls; therefore they always won.
Sometimes we would go to the church behind my house and play in the playground, other times we would go to the old women across the street whom we called Grandma Heath. She had a rock shed that we called the rock house.We would play house in there for hours. Grandma Heath would make us dress up clothes and she always made us lunch.
When people drove up and down the street they drove slow, making sure not to hit kids or pets. Everyone had cats. There were so many cats that it was hard to keep track of all of them. I think that some of the cats were from other neighborhoods.
We were the only family to have a dog, her name was Coco; and she would protect the kids. If someone came in the back yard she would bark and bark so much that my parents would come out to see whom it was. It was always just a neighbor checking up on their kid. Then the parents would stay and talk for a while about what was going on with each others family. I lived on Rogers Court until I was 11 years old, then my family and I moved to Hamar Drive I lived with my parents on Hamar Drive until I graduated from high school then I moved out on my own.
The move to Hamar Dr was at first exciting. We were moving from a one story house to a two story house and I was going to have my own bedroom. I can remember driving down the street and wondering where were the kids. I thought to myself who am I going to play with? I can remember all the houses were the same color white with blue trim and the lawns looked like they were for decoration and the not for playing on. All the houses had front yards that were small.Every yard had the same tree a Fruitless Mulberry.
In the winter they were cut back and they looked ugly. In the fall all the leaves fell to the ground. My brother, sister and I were supposed to go out and rake up the leaves. We would always get them into big piles and then we would run and jump in them making the leaves go everywhere. All the other neighbors had gardeners so they did not have to rake or mow their lawns. My brother mowed the lawns and pulled the weeds and my sister and I helped rake the leaves.
The people on this street were snotty. They all drove luxury cars like Lexus and nice Hondas. They would walk around trying to peer into everyones house. They would drive very fast up and down the street not looking out for kids or pets. They did not care who was in the road just as long as their cars did not get messed up.
My sister and I would go out front and play kick ball or just ride our bikes around.If our ball went on their lawns they would give us this nasty look like get off my lawn. They hated it if we rode our bikes near their cars for fear that we would fall and scratch them. The neighbors on Hamar Drive did not visit each other. They all just sat at home and watched television or would practice their golf swing in the front yard. None of them worked, they were all retired.
My parents were the only ones who worked. My mom worked at home running a family day care. The neighbors did not like that. They said the day care caused too much noise and traffic.
They complained to the city about the noise and traffic. The city said that my mom could only watch 6 kids instead of 12. My dad would get up every day and go to work while the neighbors would go on walks around the block.They wouldnt wave or smile at you.
They acted like they didnt know you. Hamar Drive was a very different neighborhood from Rogers Court. I liked the house on Hamar Drive because it was bigger but the neighborhood was less friendly. There was no sense of family unlike Rogers Court were everyone knew each other and knew if something was wrong. The Hamar Drive neighbors really didnt care if they knew us or not.It was quite a change from Rogers Court I missed my old neighborhood very much.
It wasnt until recently that I realized the effect the move had on my family and me. At the time of the move it seemed like big deal. I was moving less than two miles away but it seemed like hundreds when youre only seven. I was leaving my best friend, all the neighborhood kids and the fun family environment.
I couldnt understand why we couldnt just go back. Now looking back I realize that the move made me independent and made our family much closer. I was forced to play with only my brothers, read books and many other things that I had never done before. The move was the most significant thing in my life so far and it took ten years for me to realize it. Creative Writing.
