Native El Pasoans will appreciate this. So I was cruising my old neighborhood Lakeside the other night. It had just rained, with the smell of moist dust in my nose. Not sure what possessed me, just had the craving for a drive. I hadn't cruised this neighborhood in many years, yet still knew to cut through Abraham to get to Canary. Ah 7071 Canary....Grandma's old white house, so cozy with that huge back window in the den where you could get a full view of Ascarate Elementary playground where I spent many a terrifying lunch hour and recess. My friends and I would gather to the fence of her backyard where she'd greet us with treats and Juicy Fruit gum. A perfect little house with a perfect little front lawn...now tainted by a gruesome brown paint and a Cowboys logo in the driveway, long after the new owners took over....

So I sat there for a moment till I couldn't any longer and took a right down George Orr....how the valley has changed...overrun by residents who care as much for their lawns as they do their dogs leashed on a 3 foot chain. I drove on and on and on it seemed like, in search of the house I'd wanted to live in since I could walk. Naturally I was in fear that this house had ended up like many beautiful houses in that neighborhood until....there it was, as lovely as it ever was. No, it's certainly not the fanciest house I've seen, not by a long shot....but the appeal is in the simple sweetness in which it sits there, stretched out over its spacious lawn...one of those old white houses you imagine the Cleavers would live in. The valley isn't as elegant as it once was, but much of it like this house still holds the charm of an elegant simplicity without all the bells and whistles of stained glass windows and ornate balconies. It's as charming as Eastridge....and if you've ever driven through there, that's where all your old doctors live who moved in 50 years ago and still hold the pride of trimming their rosebushes themselves. I think my old doctor lives there.

All those Westside snooty neighborhoods can keep what they have....a bunch of fancy houses crammed together with little pools in the back never did much for me....I'll take 140 Ben Swain anyday....