Amanda Rhoads
Freewrite 1
January 10, 2010
I grew up in Baldwinsville, a small town twenty minutes outside of Syracuse. It is probably very similar to any other boring rural town in the North East. Baldwinsville is the name of the town however like many places there are different planned communities within them. My particular neighborhood is called Radisson. It has your cookie-cuter middle class family homes in various shades of neutral colors. It has miles upon miles of bike trails that lead to numerous parks around the neighborhood. Radisson is a safe neighborhood with plenty of children on every street, which is the appeal for most couples that are finally ready to settle down. All the children go to the same elementary school, so for the most part everyone knows everyone including their families. My family lives on a street that is cut up by two unbelievably obnoxious stop signs, which intersects a cul-de-sac in the middle of my road. I’m not sure anyone even bothers stopping at these stop signs anymore because I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone drive out of the cul-de-sac. I remember back in elementary school I stayed on my own street to play after school everyday with the other kids my age. My best friend Molly lived smack dab in the middle of the two stop signs on my road in a pale yellow house. Her back yard was pretty big because it opened up to the backyards of homes on the cul-de-sac. Most of the time we would play there with our friends and hike our way to the trail that ran through her backyard. Even though all of my friends lived on my street it was always fun to try to push our boundaries. Molly and I were the oldest of our siblings and her mom was always home while my mom seamed to always be at work. I always felt that having a working mother was odd during my elementary years because all of my friends had stayed at home moms. Since my mom wasn’t home and I had finally reached the age where I no longer needed a nanny, I started riding my bike along the paths on my street. I always wanted to cross this one particular road that lead down to a small river with a play ground. It probably wasn’t even all that exciting then but because Molly and I were specifically told not to cross this particular road it made it even that much more fun to think about. This was one of the three main roads that led you into Radisson, so the speed limit was much higher than 30mph. At the very end of the path where it met the road the trail got much wider, probably to allow maintenance vehicles to drive through. There are also thick yellow lines on the road and on the end of the trail. At the time this made it very clear to me that this intersection was dangerous and these markings were warning me to not cross this road. The ironic part is now thinking back to this I never had the slightest desire to cross the other road at the opposite end of my street. Since my mom worked until about five every night it would have been easy to go ahead and cross the street on my own but I never did without permission. A year or so later I was finally told that I could cross the street on my own. After I crossed it and rode my bike all the way to the end of the path I remember thinking how dumb it was to assume this would be anymore exciting then riding my bike on my own street. I remember sitting by the lake for a few minutes and getting bored and riding home to meet up with Molly. After that I just continued to ride around with Molly and my other friends on our street, because it would be years before Molly’s mom would ever even consider her precious child to cross such a dangerous intersection. Although you have to realize Molly wasn’t allowed to have a sleepover before practically sixth grade. Her mom was a bit over protective although like many parents in our neighborhood they all sheltered their kids from the real world. I suppose this intersection was one that kept the kids from my street in and kept the kids from the other side of the road out. This along with crosswalk signs helped determine the people I could and would play with after school each day. Without even thinking about it my parents were sheltering me just as much as Molly’s crazy mother. All of our parents were. Not because I lived in a planned community or because there were crazy people around us but due to all the boundaries our parents set up verbally that also interacted with actual signs around my community. This created what our parents thought was a safe environment for us to play in.
FREEWRITE 1
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