The Big Green House

Friday, December 26, 2003

 

Come and listen to a story ‘bout a man named b

Science Manor was built around 1936. Four years later, the last trolley line in Seattle, which ran up a nearby street, was discontinued – crushed under the wheels of the US automobile industry, just like all the other inter-urban railways of the time.

When Mere et Pere Science bought the place in the mid-Sixties, the neighborhood was still mostly working-class. Since then it has been swallowed, more or less, by an unspeakably affluent area. When I tell people the actual name of our neighborhood, I’m met with the blankest of stares from all but the oldest Seattle natives. I have to use the name of the chi-chi place to get any kind of recognition at all, and then it’s usually of the awe-struck “ooooh” sort, mocking or otherwise.

Now, on our block the neighbors are still regular people – a couple of teachers, an architect. Further up the hill, however, there is a relatively well-known actor, the CEO of a very famous internationally-despised coffee chain, several former state governors, etc. Rich folks buy the charming older houses, tear them down, and replace them with the most hideous McMansions outside of Hell or Southern California. (Not that there’s much difference between the two.) There are some seriously ugly shitheaps that cost more than the gross national product of some of the smaller third-world countries, just a block or two away.

And I would be remiss if I failed to point out that we are within walking distance of Kurt Cobain’s last earthly abode. It’s kind of a long walk, but hey, we can probably both use the exercise, right?

We’ll have to watch out for the traffic, though. Given the huge number of Range Rovers zooming around the place, you’d think we were on the edge of the fucking Serengeti. Such is not the case. However, I tell you that these vehicles are absolute necessities. How else is one to cut through the herds of lesser beings in their Volvos, Mercedeses, and Lexuseseseseses Lexi Audis on one’s way to dinner at Rover’s? I feel like Jethro Bodine driving around in our little Subaru, but in a good kind of way.

Come to think of it, this spring I’m gonna buy some goats so I can herd them down the street, knocking on doors & asking if we can graze on the south 40. I just can’t imagine a better way to meet the neighbors.

bmarkey 12/26/2003 09:10:00 PM