There were Lovely pinks in the flowers, houses, and garages, and green trees covered the streets. There was an Old run down house called “witches house”; we always biked ten times faster past it on our way home from the park. There was a sporadic spew of people Walking past black fences that lined the perimeters of houses, and many cars were parked around the Thai restaurants on the corners. Every once in a while the smell of tar from the roofing company across the ally would creep up the block. However the Thai food sweetly overpowered it. It was an Easy going, diverse, peaceful, busy street. In the summer there were Lime popsicle and slushies from the paleta man during breaks from helping dad with the lawn. Next door was a Little boy named Alex who always asked “why?” no matter what you answered the previous question. He had guinea pigs and grew corn in his back yard. We woke to Sounds of motorcycles, barking dogs, a whisper of music when sirens weren’t flying by a block down on the main streets. There were unknown languages and shopping carts of the homeless passing down the alleys picking up your soda cans after you drank them and threw them out. Then there is The only house with a full driveway. It leads to a yellow brick building, a pink garage, black fence, flower-lined trees in the front lawn. Our house. We Ran through sprinklers, after holding a car wash and having a picnic on the front lawn in the summer; fall brought bike races down the block; winter was reserved for snowball fights. Ecstatic children paraded through the streets to start off the little league baseball season in the Early summer tendrils. A few weeks later, in mid-summer nights we Talked and caught fire flies on the stairs before going to bed to wake up to the same couple of blocks of Chicago we called home.