A Childhood Legend Revealed

Ever since I was a very tiny girl, I have always had this fascination for a particular house at the end of the street where I spent the early part of my childhood.

This house wasn't pretty, or spectacular, but more it was the most dilapidated house on a block full of well-kept, pretty houses.

I am not sure if its state of disrepair is what caught my little girl eye, or if it was the idea of what it might have once looked like when it was newly built and freshly painted.

Anyways, this particular house also had an equally old and rusted Volkswagen bug sitting out front that somehow had faded to match the exact pinkish cream that the siding on the house had aged in to.

Maybe it was the Herbie that had caught my eye, I just do not remember. But I do remember asking Mama each and every time we passed that old house, all about it.

I wanted to know who lived there and why it looked so very old when everything else on the block looked so very new.

I was always told that there was a little elderly man who lived there and that he wasn't able to keep the house up like everyone else on the block.

We must have passed that house daily, if not more on our way to Grandmother's house and to the grocery store.

If I had been allowed to, I would have ridden my bicycle down to take a closer look at that house.

Alas, I was much to young, and forbidden to cross the street under any circumstances unless I had one of my babysitters or older friends with me, so I never did get to go and get that closer look.

Over the years, probably more out of habit than anything, I still find myself wondering about that little elderly man who lived in that house.

All those years of passing by that house, and I never ONCE got to see who lived there. It was if the house was vacant.

As a little girl, I had always wanted to get to walk down that far so that I could take the man his paper from the end of his driveway and maybe get to meet him somehow.

After all, I was allowed to take my other neighbor's their newspapers (and leave them on their front porch or doorstep if they weren't home) if I was out riding my bike or playing and found one at the end of the drive.

Today, as I was driving down Creswell, on the way home from taking Bregon to his classes at the Renzi Center, I looked up out of habit at that old house.

It stands there still, to this day, looking almost the exact same as it did when I was a toddler nagging my Mum about its owner.

I nearly wrecked the car today, though. For what should I see outside of this house today that would cause such a shock?

It was a yardman, working on the lawn of that pinkish white house. And there, standing out in front of the house, giving what appeared to be directions to the worker, was a little elderly man holding a bag in one hand, and a cane of sorts in the other.

After all of these years, I finally was able to see who lives in that house. I have to wonder, if my Mum had once described this man to be elderly when I was a child of two, how old must he be now if I am almost thirty five?

But today, I feel as if a Legend has been revealed, and one of those childhood wonders finally unlocked.

My Mum isn't here anymore, so I cannot very well give her a call and tell her what I saw today.

Instead, I have chosen to share it with you. So remember, the next time your child asks you a question about their neighborhood, or something out of the ordinary, you may be helping to create a mystery, or even a legend!