The Rushings

She wouldn’t let me walk the half block up the hill but she would let me walk to school by myself. All of kindergarten and first grade I walked to school. The neighborhood was all that I knew. 715 22nd street and 7th avenue. We all called it the green house. And I think we all loved it. It was the kind of neighborhood that everyone knew everyone and the backyards of the houses on 22nd street backed perfectly to the backyards of the houses on 21st street. And if you were a friendly neighbor there was a gate that led from your backyard to your neighbors. And we had an alley at the bottom of the hill and one at the top of the hill. And the houses all look similar but not the cookie cutter houses we have now. It was a good neighborhood. At the very bottom of the hill facing 7th avenue was the Spaulding apartments. A red brick building, four stories high. On the fourth floor was Mr. and Mrs. Rushing’s apartment. I knew how to get to their apartment from the front or the back door. If you entered through the front the Rushings would have to ring you up and there was an elevator. But if you entered from the rear… you could just climb the big grey wooden stairs all the way to the fourth floor. Every time I entered Mr. and Mrs. Rushing’s home they had a 7up and a Hershey’s bar in the fridge. Their house didn’t smell like old people like so many other houses I had to visit.