Model childhoods

Not long ago, a story appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about a retired engineer who is reconstructing his childhood neighborhood in miniature. Carl Kersey, Sr., 73, grew up in Happy Hollow, a neighborhood of about 50 homes in eastern Richmond. The homes were bulldozed more than 30 years ago by the local redevelopment and housing authority, but the neighborhood lives on in his mind and in his scale replica.

Kersey's miniature Happy Hollow is rich in detail, from the tiny sheets that flap from clotheslines to the swimming pool that recalls the one that his father made from a fuel tank. In the article and accompanying video, writer Melodie Martin records Kersey's memories of an enchanting, working class community, where children bought penny candy at the corner store, swam in water-filled gravel pits, and whiled away afternoons "in the grassy lots between homes where they played baseball, cows grazed and tent revivals were held."

Reading the article, I feel a nostalgic tug for Mr. Kersey's neighborhood. It is interesting to me that the most modest of living conditions can often glean some of the richest of childhoods.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/KERS06_20090505-223203/266005/

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My 13-year-old was intrigued by the pictures of Mr. Kersey's model of Happy Hollow. "It's like the one in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," she said. Both of my children have a fond appreciation for that quiet, slow-paced show. One of their favorite parts is the opening, when the camera pans a model of the neighborhood as the themesong begins.

The model is used in other parts of the show. When the kindly Mister Rogers visits his neighbors, his journeys are traced down its orderly streets. Everything that Mister Rogers needs seems to be within walking distance.

I would love to be able to walk a few blocks to check out some books from the library, buy a gallon of milk, or say hello to a friendly fireman. But my neighborhood is considered "car dependent," at least by the folks at http://www.walkscore.com/. Our community is safe, and abundant with natural beauty. The trade-off is that, unlike Mister Rogers, we would have to walk a couple of miles and cross some pretty major roads to get to the nearest store or library.

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My grandparents lived in Toronto for most of their lives, and, while there, they never owned a car. Everywhere they wanted to go was either accessible by foot or mass transit. We lived in Toronto when I was very young, and Gram watched me during the day while my parents worked. I still have vivid memories of my time in their very walkable neighborhood. I remember pushing my dolls in a little pram when we went to the playground down the street. On the way home, we'd stop at a corner store where Gram would treat me to a soda, a comic book, and ketchup potato chips. My grandparents lived on the second floor of a three-story walk-up, and the halls and stairwells always seemed to smell like fried food.

My grandparents have been dead for a number of years now, but, last fall, I returned to that old neighborhood. Lacking a child's dramatic sense of scale, everything looked so different. The buildings, especially, seemed so short. I did not recognize the playground down the street where I had spent so many hours. I wondered how many years it had been since they had replaced the swings and slides on which I had once played.

The older I get, the more I miss my grandparents. Perhaps I thought that by going back to their old neighborhood, I could somehow replicate what it felt like to be three years old and walking to the playground with my Gram. I found that I could no longer connect to what was, and would instead have to hold on to the memories of what had once been.