diesel engines of cement trucks and bulldozers, and the cars driving past us on the gravel road. By Labor Day weekend and forever after, the noise of carpenters and earthmoving equipment had given way to the sounds of children, delivery trucks, and gasoline-powered lawnmowers.
Countless times during the next ten years, Adams and I ran, walked, or rode our bicycles the two blocks up Byron’s Lane from my house to El Capitan, just off the S-curve on County Road 106, which had been renamed Cambridge Drive. Our favorite vantage point was sitting on a broad limb of an ancient, dying elm tree that we were sure was older than George Washington. The big tree had somehow grown on the knob of a round top that ascended from the other side of the road where our fathers’ station wagons had parked. The protuberance was full of huge rocks, which probably saved it from being flattened and becoming a building site. It afforded an outstanding view of the neighborhood, particularly in the late autumn, winter, and early spring, when leaves on the other trees that grew from the rocks weren’t hanging around to foul it.
The housing developer chose an English Romantic Period theme for his Maplewood subdivision. By the end of the first year of our neighborhood’s existence, literary new street names had swept away all of Maplewood’s more descriptive place names on our side of town. Gravel Pit Road was no more; Ridge Road disappeared from street signs; Cemetery Hill was gone forever. When it was finished, our instant neighborhood consisted of nine blocks: two north-south streets, bisected by two that ran east and west. We never counted how many houses made up the neighborhood, spread over a grid that resembled a giant tic-tac-toe board. But when Adams and I shared a Cleveland Plain Dealer route, we had 282 Sunday customers.
When I think of a lane, my mind drifts to the drive up to Scarlett O’Hara’s antebellum mansion in Gone with the Wind , or a jeep trail under a canopy of oaks. No trees were ever planted to umbrella the exposed asphalt surface of Byron’s Lane. The road was straight as an arrow, with no evidence anywhere along its sides of absolutely anything asymmetrical. Byron’s Lane was hardly a lane at all.
*
I didn’t notice that Adams had left his kitchen and returned to the deck. His silence and his posture told me that he had reverted to his reflective mood. I moved closer to the place where he stood. I wanted to share my epiphany with him.
His property slid down a long, gentle slope of grassland dotted by small clumps of brush. Besides our childhood neighborhood, the landscape was twin to the place at Gettysburg where Pickett’s Charge had taken place during the Civil War. The tree line in the distance was where the Confederates assembled and began their march. Adams’s deck was the stone wall at Cemetery Ridge that protected the Union soldiers. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was a long but manageable Sunday drive from Maplewood. Adams and I did it once during our senior year in high school and twice during the two summers we were home from college. Adams’s grandfather was a soft touch when we needed a car for a road trip.
I excitedly told Adams what I saw hidden in the panorama of his property. Lumping Adams’s backyard with two places we associated with lost causes—Byron’s Lane and Pickett’s Charge—produced a chuckle.
“You might be right,” was all he said.
I noted the expression on his face. “You look like someone’s just guessed the password for your ATM card.”
“Yeah, right,” he sarcastically replied. His response was too quick and too dismissive. He asked for no elaboration; he offered no further comment. He turned and passed by me, walking the length of his deck to fetch a paper napkin that had fallen off the patio table. On his way back to where I stood, he disappeared into his house through the sliding screen door.
Not knowing if Adams was planning to return, I started to walk toward the
Countless times during the next ten years, Adams and I ran, walked, or rode our bicycles the two blocks up Byron’s Lane from my house to El Capitan, just off the S-curve on County Road 106, which had been renamed Cambridge Drive. Our favorite vantage point was sitting on a broad limb of an ancient, dying elm tree that we were sure was older than George Washington. The big tree had somehow grown on the knob of a round top that ascended from the other side of the road where our fathers’ station wagons had parked. The protuberance was full of huge rocks, which probably saved it from being flattened and becoming a building site. It afforded an outstanding view of the neighborhood, particularly in the late autumn, winter, and early spring, when leaves on the other trees that grew from the rocks weren’t hanging around to foul it.
The housing developer chose an English Romantic Period theme for his Maplewood subdivision. By the end of the first year of our neighborhood’s existence, literary new street names had swept away all of Maplewood’s more descriptive place names on our side of town. Gravel Pit Road was no more; Ridge Road disappeared from street signs; Cemetery Hill was gone forever. When it was finished, our instant neighborhood consisted of nine blocks: two north-south streets, bisected by two that ran east and west. We never counted how many houses made up the neighborhood, spread over a grid that resembled a giant tic-tac-toe board. But when Adams and I shared a Cleveland Plain Dealer route, we had 282 Sunday customers.
When I think of a lane, my mind drifts to the drive up to Scarlett O’Hara’s antebellum mansion in Gone with the Wind , or a jeep trail under a canopy of oaks. No trees were ever planted to umbrella the exposed asphalt surface of Byron’s Lane. The road was straight as an arrow, with no evidence anywhere along its sides of absolutely anything asymmetrical. Byron’s Lane was hardly a lane at all.
*
I didn’t notice that Adams had left his kitchen and returned to the deck. His silence and his posture told me that he had reverted to his reflective mood. I moved closer to the place where he stood. I wanted to share my epiphany with him.
His property slid down a long, gentle slope of grassland dotted by small clumps of brush. Besides our childhood neighborhood, the landscape was twin to the place at Gettysburg where Pickett’s Charge had taken place during the Civil War. The tree line in the distance was where the Confederates assembled and began their march. Adams’s deck was the stone wall at Cemetery Ridge that protected the Union soldiers. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was a long but manageable Sunday drive from Maplewood. Adams and I did it once during our senior year in high school and twice during the two summers we were home from college. Adams’s grandfather was a soft touch when we needed a car for a road trip.
I excitedly told Adams what I saw hidden in the panorama of his property. Lumping Adams’s backyard with two places we associated with lost causes—Byron’s Lane and Pickett’s Charge—produced a chuckle.
“You might be right,” was all he said.
I noted the expression on his face. “You look like someone’s just guessed the password for your ATM card.”
“Yeah, right,” he sarcastically replied. His response was too quick and too dismissive. He asked for no elaboration; he offered no further comment. He turned and passed by me, walking the length of his deck to fetch a paper napkin that had fallen off the patio table. On his way back to where I stood, he disappeared into his house through the sliding screen door.
Not knowing if Adams was planning to return, I started to walk toward the
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