• Menu
  • Skip to right header navigation
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Sudden Write Turn Freelance Writing

Word magic

  • About Me
  • Work With Me
  • Workshopping
  • Portfolio
    • Blogging
    • Business Communication
    • Literary Journalism
    • Website Content
    • Workshopping
    • Memory Lane
  • My Blog
  • Contact
  • About Me
  • Work With Me
  • Workshopping
  • Portfolio
    • Blogging
    • Business Communication
    • Literary Journalism
    • Website Content
    • Workshopping
    • Memory Lane
  • My Blog
  • Contact

House Party

March 24, 2013 //  by Terra Osterling

It has been a long time since I’ve been awake, fully dressed, and socializing outside my house after midnight on a Friday night.

There were crowds of people.
There was booze.
The cops even showed up.

The next morning – which came too quickly and too brightly – found me collecting beer cans and liquor bottles that I then knotted into a grocery bag and left on the porch of the new neighbor who threw a house party.

I was not excited about being up until 2:30am monitoring the activity of the 75-100 “youths” who found their way to our dead-end street Friday night. Dead-end as in “no outlet.” Dead-end as in “no through traffic.” Dead-end as in “we notice things.”

Because this is OUR neighborhood.

We notice when the traffic exponentially increases after 11pm. We notice when those cars line both sides of the street and turn around on lawns. We notice the yelled obscenities and smoking tires of a screeching peel-out.

Listen, kids, go ahead and be young and have a good time. But keep in mind that when your epic good time explodes out of control outside our houses, we will shut you down.

Because this is OUR neighborhood.

We are working people, families with kids, and retirees. We mow our lawns, and sometimes our neighbor’s lawn if it needs cutting and we know that they’ve been busy with an ill relative.

We clear snow from our driveway, a neighbor’s driveway, and then also the sidewalk so when our neighbors are out walking their dogs they’ll have an easier time.

We live on small building lots, so we let the neighborhood kids play their games over two or three front yards so they have enough space. If we run low on charcoal or lighter fluid for the grill, a neighbor will have it to give.

So when the party guests at your soiree are rowdy enough in the street to wake a seven year old girl and send her scared and crying to her parents’ bedroom, we don’t like it.

And when two more of your party guests are arrested on the street below the bedroom window of another child, we don’t like it.

We will call the police and we will put on our coats and come outside to watch you. We want you to see us watching you, and then we will take pictures of the cars we don’t recognize lining the streets. We even say a cheerful “good evening” to your (bewildered) party guests – just so they know that inside all these houses are real people.

Because this is OUR neighborhood.

And the next morning, I will collect the empties that your party guests seem to have lost. I pick up beer cans from the front yard of a young couple who are raising a toddler, and who I think might practice a religion that teaches abstinence  from alcohol. I pick up a liquor bottle from the front yard of a retiree who drives to the nursing home every day to visit his wife. I pick up more cans from the yard of someone I don’t know at all, except that I know they keep their yard immaculate.

Because this is OUR neighborhood.

You just moved in this winter and soon it will become your neighborhood, too. We haven’t met yet, but when we do, I’ll say:

“Welcome to the neighborhood.  It’s a nice place to live and we hope you like it here.”

The rest of us like it a lot.

Share

Category: Outside my comfort zoneTag: House party, Neighborhood watch

Previous Post: « Show You(r) Green
Next Post: It’s Enough »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Rosemary Irwin

    March 24, 2013 at 7:28 PM

    This is a difficult subject well addressed. Your welcome in the end was a quiet surprise. Good luck communicating your message!

    • suddenwriteturn

      March 25, 2013 at 4:38 PM

      Thank you…we just want our neighbors to love our neighborhood as much as we do.

  2. teresa wood

    March 24, 2013 at 4:29 PM

    AMEN! Couldn’t have said it any better if I was the best writer in the world!

    • suddenwriteturn

      March 25, 2013 at 4:37 PM

      Thank you!

Primary Sidebar

Stories are best told over snacks or beverages.

Let’s “Zoom” to find out what it might be like to work together. At the very least, we can swap a few good stories.
CONTACT ME

LEARN ABOUT WORKSHOPPING

Subscribe

Occasional blog posts and monthly newsletters delivered to your inbox!

My Recent Posts

Decade

February 25, 2022 By //  by Terra Osterling

Playground Revolution

October 18, 2021 By //  by Terra Osterling

“Though she be but little, she is fierce.”

October 5, 2021 By //  by Terra Osterling

Contact

585.314.8555
terra@suddenwriteturn.com

Sudden Write Turn Freelance Writing

Footer

Subscribe

Occasional blog posts and monthly newsletters delivered to your inbox!

Links

About Me
Work With Me
Award Winning Essay
My Blog
Contact

Portfolio

Blogging
Business Communication
Literary Journalism
Website Content
Workshopping

Privacy Policy
Sudden Write Turn Freelance Writing

Search

Copyright © 2023 Sudden Write Turn Freelance Writing · All Rights Reserved · Site by TechCreative, LLC

Scroll Up