nostalgic for Providence

Some thoughts about the East Side..

Changing of the Guards

It happens the same way every morning around 9 AM. The Lexuses and Infinitis pull away from their curbs, brokers and lawyers turning to NPR and blasting the air, and the trucks plastered with Italian names and their brothers or sons pull up in their place. In the front of the truck: sweating Guatemalans and Dominicans, windows rolled down, fast food wrappers in the dashboard. In the back: multitudes of leaf-blowers and rakes and mulch, perhaps even an entire extra trailer if they are contractors and not just gardeners. The tools, a classroom of eager pupils, stand up straight against the side of the flatbed. The neighborhood no longer belongs to Susan Leech or Mike Goldman. Now, save for the odd anorexic jogger mom, the neighborhood is theirs until 5. For these guys spend more time at the house than their owners.



Dust flies in the air from the corner of every property as leaves are blown away, blasted for their unsightliness. The noise is unbearable, but no one who would mind is there to hear it, and the man wears a facemask and goggles anyway, as if he is working with something toxic. He stops to wipe his face for a minute, and glances at the 90 degree sun, with the backpack device hanging there. The men grab their lunches and squat by the edge of the truck, careful not to get their McDonald’s waste near the lawn. They delegate these personal activities to the flatbed, take 20 minutes as they stare at the house, chatting idly, then return to their work.



Day after day, once the final frost has cleared for the year, there is always something to be done, some improvement to be made. The competition ensues for the most pristine pruning, the tidiest topiary. But how can this truly be a competition of the homeowners when it is the workers who have created the landscape, lovingly crafting a layout for days at a time? The owners do not know the yard, the property. They do not spend any time on it, just a few hours a night before sleep at 10 PM. They don’t spend any time really in any room but the lovingly labeled “family room,” where he reads his paper, glancing over the top for the five o’clock news’s latest break in the political scandal. She hovers between the bread maker in the kitchen and her online shopping addiction, bidding on the Seven Jeans on eBay.



To be fair, this is not your typical suburban neighborhood. The bread she is baking is challah, and they are not even in a suburb, but the wealthy East Side of Providence, where affluence is not always so overstated. Among the Land Rovers and Mercedes parked in the driveways of the million dollar homes, there is a smattering of Hondas and Toyotas, even the occasional Kia or ten year old Geo. Many parents, though by no means not all, feel comfortable sending their children to the magnet system of the public schools. And the homes are not identical mini-mansions but protected historic landmarks ranging from two centuries ago to about the fifties. Plaques adorn these houses, stating the original builder or architect and the year it was built, superimposed on the seal of the Providence Historical Society. For all the time the owners spend looking at these plaques, maybe we should write them in Spanish. But there is more work to be done. I think I saw a weed on my neighbor’s lawn.