A FAREWELL TO REDNECK LANE

Finally, at long last, after all these years and three months, I have shaken off the angel dust of Redneck Lane and now find myself smack dab in the center of suburban gentility.  It has taken some getting used to, but I think I'm sorting out the changes in ambiance that now surround me.

The Head brothers (you remember Dick and Skin?) have been replaced by people who push lawn mowers instead of nickel bags.  My next door neighbors are no longer emaciated tweakers...now I have a white-haired lady, her grown children and her little dog, too.  Instead of the Labratts across the street, there now lives Phyllis and Mr. Phyllis ("we used to have a ministry") who greeted me with a pan of warm brownies the day I moved in.

That rat-tat-tat out back no longer signifies gunplay.  It's the woodpecker who occupies the tree outside my bedroom window.  The screeching of tires is gone, and the squawk of angry blue jays has taken over.  Police and ambulance sirens have morphed into the sweet sound of sparrows and mockingbirds.  No more foul-mouthed unwashed children chasing across my yard; now I gaze fondly upon a family of waddling Muscovite ducks circling the house.  Those carmine streaks are not the result of blood-spatter...they're just a flock of cardinals on their way home.

On the other hand, I must admit to a certain nostalgia for RNL; the annual meth lab explosion, the Fourth of July forest fire, the bodies a-washin' up under the docks and the gala White Trash Pride Parade all have left a soft space (and a hardened artery) in my heart.  Sometimes I awaken in the silence of the night, listening in vain for the thuds and screams of domestic violence that once surrounded me and it still startles me to see the ice cream truck driver actually dispensing ice cream to the youngsters, rather than the blunts he sold in the old neighborhood.  No longer will bruises and contusions be exchanged on Valentine's Day and Christmas will never seem the same without an armed and dangerous Santa skulking down the Lane.

But I'm growing accustomed to my new place, with all its calm peace and quiet.  And I'm finally resigned to dying of some pedestrian geriatric ailment, instead of the wildly adventurous random gunshot wound I had every right to expect in my former digs.  A bit disappointing perhaps, but the guy who mows the lawn does have a pony tail, so there may be hope for an entertaining demise yet.