A chill air blew down Crooks Avenue from the east, yet snow had not yet arrived, leaving the slate sidewalk at the bottom of my front stairs clear, as was the street itself, parked cars lining the curb, including Harold’s Cadillac and Ritchie’s carpentry truck. A block of stone and a small concrete post stood at the curb from another era before the horseless carriage, where people mounted and dismounted from the back of carts pulled by horses. I paused brief porch steps to catch my breath with two sets of stairs leading to the slate walk at the bottom, the wooden porch steps and the concrete ones below those, with grass slopes to either side, and a concrete retaining wall at the bottom which has served me as The Alamo, Mount Everest and a host of other imaginary places when I was young. The yellowed grass on the slopes reminded me of the chore I had promised to complete, overgrown weeds stooping over like abandoned wheat. My heart still raced, but not nearly as bad...
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