The Beauty of Humble Old Neighborhoods

I love old houses.

But the stately beauty of older homes on status streets does little for me. They may be gorgeous architectural landmarks but they don't attract me.

My heart melts when I see a simple house surrounded by a white fence and flowers, preferably one near a railroad track. A humble home made alluring by small touches thrills me. If residents hear and see a train rumble past several times a day, it gets even better.

My parents, both raised by French Canadian mothers, lived in colorful neighborhoods. My mother lived in the heart of our city's Little Canada/Frenchtown while my father's family lived in the old Jewish cattle trader's neighborhood, north of the tracks.

Raised in different cities in different states divided by a river, my parents met at a Catholic high school which drew students from two states. They were very distant relatives, a fact I only discovered recently, thanks to DNA testing. But that was back in Quebec, more than a century before they encountered each other in the late 1930s.

Both lived near neighborhood grocery stores - how could they not, in those days? And both lived near a small strip of Boomtown Commercial buildings housing bakeries, saloons, and various commercial enterprises like shoemakers and second-hand stores.

There are traces of those old neighborhoods today, if you know where to look for them.