Crickets and frogs fill the humid, summer night air with music, and the scents of magnolia and night-blooming jasmine welcome me as I begin my walk.
As I pass each house, I notice that some of them are completely dark, some have lights on in the windows, and some even have people out on their front porches. The front porch sitters wave and say hello as I pass, and I wave back. It's not necessary, but it's one of the things that makes this such a lovely little village in which to live. The houses are well tended and welcoming. Some are tiny cottages with just a door and one window tucked under a small front porch. Some are sprawling Victorian mansions with wrap-around porches, balconies, towers and windows on every side. But they all blend together in a companionable, seamless whole that is quite charming.
As I reach the main street, brick paving stones and street lamps made to resemble gaslights add to the village charm. Along the main street are the things you would expect to see. A gas station, a bank, a couple of fast food restaurants. But these things actually look just a little out of place in this lovely place full of wisteria and tiger lilies, cobblestone streets and history.
I have come to another main street of the village, and although this is a main thoroughfare, at this time of night there is barely a car to be heard. Instead, there are people walking along the sidewalk in the darkness who are, like me, out enjoying the summer evening. The two local pubs have their doors open, and music from the live bands pours into the street, beckoning entrance. The local VFW hall is still decorated in red, white, and blue streamers for Labor Day, and it's flag clangs against the flagpole, sending out a mellow chime into the darkness. At the used bookstore, the owner has gone for the night, but with the trusting graciousness of a small village business owner, has left a box of free books for passersby to enjoy. Another block down is the Post Office...a 100 year old brick structure with 20 foot high plaster ceilings and walls, that still retains it's wood framed, barred service windows from the early 20th century. It is a beautiful, gentle, silent giant in the night. The Moose Lodge makes me smile with the irony of everything that is similar about every small town across America, as I read the posted sign for a Saturday morning Pancake Breakfast. The flag here, too, clangs in the night, answering the call of it's neighbor. The American Legion building is dark tonight, but it makes me laugh, as I often do, at the bit of a cliche it seems having the VFW, American Legion, and Moose Lodge all within a few blocks of each other. I've passed all my favorite antique shops, and the live theatre, which is quiet tonight, but looks like it's just waiting in anticipation for the next show. At the corner is a school, and inside I can see a couple of the nuns rearranging desks and putting up bulletin boards, gearing up for all the children who will be happily learning there tomorrow. Across the street from the school is a church. A beautiful, old white stucco church that might look more suited to a southwestern town than my Colonial/Victorian village, but it is a village landmark, nonetheless, and looks cheerful and welcoming with it's neatly kept lawn and flower beds.
As I walk down my street, the last few blocks toward home, I am once again surrounded by beautiful Colonial homes, Civil War era mansions and freedmen's homes, Victorian Painted Ladies, and Craftsman jewels. By all accounts my home, being a Craftsman American Foursquare as she is, is the brand new build in the neighborhood, even at 90 years old. But my village, tucked quietly and gracefully into the middle of a bustling city holds a charm and a beauty I never expected to find when I bought the house. I bought my Craftsman jewel because I fell in love with it. I am just as much in love with the village it is in. It is an everyday joy to live here.
