It was a dead end.
My grandparents had moved there
from Circle Drive on Hughes Lake.
They’d had to trade their nine-room house
for a second-floor flat they shared
with my widowed mother and me.
Grandpa, a retired meat merchant,
made cold calls in his 1930 Chevy coupe,
peddling Hobart slicing machines.
Mother, a kindergarten teacher,
found herself chief wage earner,
Grandma homemaker and stand-in mother.

In that street, we kids rode bikes,
roller-skated, and played stickball.
On trash day, we went "garbage picking,"
searching the refuse for treasures.
An empty lot was "The Woods,"
ideal for campfires and Wild West gunfights.
"Imussbe a Cowboy!" "Youmussbe an Indian!"
The embankment, blocking the street,
held the railroad tracks, a perfect place
to flatten pennies and take dares.
No dead end for me.