Sometimes I sit down and think about where I live. Out of every city or town, every street, every house in the world, this is mine. It almost doesn’t feel real when you think about it like that. There are hundreds of neighborhoods in Auburn alone, yet I ended up in the one I’m in. The difference between other neighborhoods and my own, however, is my parents never bought this house. My dad inherited it, as it’s a family house that has been in our family for around 125 years.

My dad has told me before that if he were actually to look for a house to buy, he wouldn’t have bought in this area. Most likely he would have bought a house out in the country where my brothers and I were born and raised until 2011, but nothing really ever does go to plan. Originally we lived outside of Aurora and went to Southern Cayuga schools, moving here in the middle of my 6th grade year. While it may not be the planned area, it has still grown on all of us in the 5 and a half years we’ve lived here.

Over the years we’ve adjusted to the area and gotten used to the quirks of the street. Quirks such as the people who live four houses down with a bathtub in their front yard they use as a garden, the house with ivy completely covering the front of their house, Rick across the street who says hello every chance he gets, or the guy down the street who’s always working on a new car every week. As well as this, you get so used to things a certain way that you almost don’t like it at first when something changes and it takes a while to get used to. For as long as I can remember, there has always been a house down the street whose front porch was painted very bright colors, such as orange, bright green, pink, purple. I would always comment on the porch saying how much I liked it because of how different it was. It wasn’t like the normal white, red, or natural wood front porches you see everywhere else. However, these people moved out the middle of last year and right before they did, they painted the front porch red. I took notice to the porch right away and still think how unique it used to be everytime I see it.

Many people say that their neighborhoods are unique, but I truly believe that mine is. “Sears Catalog Homes,” pre-manufactured homes sold by Sears and built around the 1940s and 1950s, is what most of the houses in my neighborhood are referred to as. While I do not live in one of these houses, I’ve always found it interesting that I rarely see any houses like this anywhere around Auburn besides here yet there’s so many in my neighborhood. It almost makes you wonder why they were all built here and nowhere else.

Many houses here are occupied by elderly people who have lived here most of their lives, seeing the neighborhood go through many changes. My dad’s uncle, who we inherited the house from, is 66 years old and has lived here since he was 5 years old. He’s told us stories of the neighborhood, how he remembers when the neighborhood directly to the south wasn’t there and it was all woods. How there was a tennis court on the next street over that is a vacant lot now. How the park 3 streets over used to contain a pool, which is a basketball court now. How our side yard, which is another city lot, used to belong to the house behind us and they used to have pear trees growing there that he would always steal and get in trouble for stealing. Thanks to him we even know that the mailman’s name is Dennis.

Across the street used to live Mrs. Peas, who had lived their since she was 9 years old. She moved out after almost 65 years because she had gotten too old to take care of herself. 2 houses down used to live Mrs. Donvito who died peacefully in her sleep one day, around 20 years after her husband. She had lived here for close to 40 years. Kitty corner to us is Tucker, whose wife, Marsha, just died of breast cancer in January. After only living here 5 and a half years, we’ve seen a lot of change in the neighborhood. I can’t imagine how much change someone who’s lived here 50 or more years has seen.