All of my young adult life I was looking for the neighborhood that I
grew up in. The perfect place to raise my son. 
Nice neighbors. Peace and quiet. Decent homes. Kids playing safely. Local drugstore with a soda jerk on the job, comic books on the shelf. Hobby shop down the block. Trees.Occasionally I'd find such a neighborhood. You had to make six figures per year to live in them. The cops would spy me checking the place out and follow me until I left.
Alas.
The '60s of my childhood. Gone, Daddy-O! 
4 comments:
LOVE IT!
Actually the community you describe is a little place called Burgaw, NC. It even has a courthouse square with a little gazebo that kids all gather at for pictures at prom and graduation. Across the street is Dee's Drugs complete with a soda fountain.
And, amazingly, it is affordable and located easy driving distance from Wilmington, a decent size city to have a "real job" in.
Around here,such places were always far out of my capacity to afford.
That house in the above photograph is a lot like the one I envisioned in Natalia, Kansas, in my book BLEEDING KANSAS. The distinguishing feature of the place for me, as with the neighborhood, was the superabundance of trees. Something I picked up early on is the peasants bake in the open sun, but it's always cool and green where the old money lives.
And the cops are always active. And they can tell when you "don't belong" there.
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