Dreamland, The Long of It

The movie Meet Me in St. Louis, which I watched recently, caused me to reminisce about the city in which I was born, raised, and where I lived until marrying and moving away almost 60 years ago.  I fed the memories by looking at maps and satellite images of Kensington Avenue, even found the site of the house which was central to the theme of the movie.  It is now a vacant lot, the house having been torn down after it became derelict.

In my browsing of the internet, I came upon properties listed for sale thereabouts and searched the old neighborhood where I lived.  Many of the houses in my old neighborhood were built in the late 20's and early 30's; of brick and stone construction, and built to last forever.

The house at 8572 Oriole Avenue, in which I lived, was built before all of that; probably around 1900.  It is still there and the subject of another blogpost in By John Lina on 10-28-12.  The other, newer houses were appealing to me then and seeing one for sale in the 8600 block of Riverview Boulevard made me realize that I still have a spot in my heart for them.

I searched around the area and saw other places for sale, some of that same character.  It made me think about living there as I recalled the desirability of those houses then, and perhaps even now.  The reverie was fun and, as it turns out, not a complete waste of time.

Later, as I cut our lawn, it dawned on me that the house in which we now live is the fulfillment of that desire.  It is not very far off from the style of those in our neighborhood.  Then it dawned on me!  I am living the dream I had as a youth.  An area with desirable amenities and convenient to shopping; a nice house in a nice neighborhood, a manicured lawn and garden, finished lower level for entertaining and nice big garage to house similar cars for my wife and me.  What a nice state of affairs.

The poem, Dreamland in the blog By: John Lina, is a terse summary of the above and it poses the question: if the dream is realized, is it time to build a new dream, perhaps using this as a starting point?  I wonder what that dream will be.