​The Block Party

There’s an unspoken communal aspect when growing up on a street with a boulevard. The grass separating you from your across-the-street neighborhood is more of a gathering spot than a divide. Every year we had a block party. One or more of our neighbors would round the block on foot mid-summer, visiting every house with a clipboard, where each resident would sign a petition requesting one day and one night to legally be granted the permission to block off our street with long wooden orange and white reflective striped traffic barriers. It would fall on the same day, every year, when the Packers played their first pre-season game, and would last from noon into the following morning.

The anticipation for the day would keep you up at night. Waking up early and peering through the blinds to see the volleyball net being hammered into the ground on the boulevard, between the now-removed maple trees, was enough to get your heart pounding. All the kids would skateboard, ride bikes, scooter, play basketball, run in and out of each other’s homes looking for one another, and most importantly, no longer had the normal set of rules we typically had during the rest of the summer, which included the best of them all – we could play in the street all day and all night long. It was a free for all. There were extension chords running from houses to the center of the boulevard, where people would bring out their once garage-ridden CRTV’s to watch football. There was one house, in the middle of the street, where teenagers would hang out in the backyard to compete in a beer pong tournament, the closest there was to a college party we had access to as children, while the parents willfully turned a blind eye. The adults would drink, watch The Packers, share warm home cooked meals and desserts (so many brownies?) which were always served in abundance on fold out tables under white tents with mosquito netting, and compete in the annual shuffle board competition, where they would team up with their spouse or their most athletic child to hopefully win the engraved golden trophy, which comically seemed to bounce between the same three families year after year. Since the street was blocked off, everyone with a car would park outside of our block, either creating more room for activities, or serving a better escape route to avoid moving the barriers every time you needed to run to the gas station to buy more beer. Everyone, both children and adults alike, would equally occupy the oval shaped street, front yards, back yards, and side walks. Although, there was an unspoken understanding, towards the end of the boulevard where it curved, creating an almost circular meeting spot – this is where everything went down – this is where the grills sat all day long burning with hot coals, two bonfire pits, one of the many TV’s, all jutted up next to the curb which dipped down into freshly paved cement of the early 2000’s. It was the perfect place to put a basketball hoop, and the freshest flatland a young driveway occupied skateboarder could find. This is where we lit fireworks at night. This is where we watched our dads play pick up basketball together, beers in hand, while our moms cheered them on, each of them variably drunk off Speedway cups filled with rum and Coke.

Throughout the day, us kids would sit on curbs talking shit with one another, or chasing one another through the street while using our skateboards for transportation. We would toss a football back and forth until we moved onto the next yard activity, like bag-o or yard golf, or having a pick up game of shuffle board between our parent’s competition rotation, all while patiently waiting for the periodical retreat to someone’s basement to play Runescape in the cool air conditioning, all while losing count of which number soda or freezer pop is in your hand by 5pm.

Older kids would typically show up, but never when you imagined them to. It was always a surprise, and naturally you’d be fascinated by them. One of our neighbors older cousins skateboarded. One year he brought his friends over, who era-appropriately, was a clone of Ryan Sheckler. Wearing a half zipped Famous Stars & Straps hoodie, baggy black jeans that sat perfectly on top a pair of swollen Etnies, and a backwards fitted hat forcing his golden brown hair stylishly flipping from under the edges, showed us he could kick flip. It was the first time I had ever seen one done in person. He did it over a sewer cap, a self-proclaimed neighborhood “gap” of ours, inspired by the Tony Hawk games. It was incredible, and immediately jump started a fever inside of us all – who would land the first kick flip amongst us neighbor kids? It was like seeing magic for the first time. All of us, generally sheltered from the outside skateboarding world, just saw someone jump up into the air, spin the board underneath them, and land back on top and rolled away, all while moving! Over our “most difficult gap”! It was something we had only seen in video games and low resolution skateboard videos that had been ripped from VHS and put on Youtube in 2006. It was unbelievable.

At a certain point, it wasn’t all skateboards and starry eyes. As the oldest of the bunch, at the ripe age of 14, I was the first to be enthralled with the prospect of girls. Sometimes the pretty high school girl who lived between my house and my friends would invite her other pretty friends over for the party. They were probably 16 at the time. They would arrive in their rusted beater cars, getting out wearing spaghetti strapped tank tops with pin-straight hot ironed blond hair and PINK short shorts. They would give all of us younger boys a hard time for “still being in middle school” and “not kissing girls yet”. They teased us, we ate it up, and it was all good clean fun. It was our first taste of attention from “older women”, like Wendy Peffercorn in Sandlot. We would try so hard to play it cool, and the minute they left we would snicker like little girls about who’s crushing on who, and whether or not they actually liked us back. The rush was the equivalent of getting your first $100 bill, and convincing yourself you could buy a house.

There was also a baby sitter who would come around every week throughout the summer, who would show up “off duty” to enjoy the party. My heart was always torn in two by whether or not I wanted to entertain “the older women” who teased us, or whole heartily pursue the girl closer to my age, who didn’t talk much, but had shown to be responsible and kind through her seasonal roll every Tuesday throughout July. The anticipation of turning around and seeing her walking up with parents gave my little 14 year old heart my first set of summertime butterflies. The balance between skateboarding, girls, drinking sodas, popsicles, and knowing it’s all a ticking time bomb until sunset was inexplicably magical.

Once it was dark enough, all of the kids and teenagers would play an annual game of Ghost in the Graveyard. We would gather around at the end of the block where the pavement was new, just shy of our parents who were good and toasty off Miller Lights and Vodka sodas, and would line up to decide who was “it”. Some of us would have flash lights, others wouldn’t. Some wanted to play, some played reluctantly, and usually some of the pretty older girls would join in for the sake of participation, while in hindsight, probably just wanting to sober up from all the beer pong they’ve been playing. The beer pong backyard was the only yard off limits. I had only seen it once during the yearly block party, when it was in different form than a normal backyard. We had hit a ball over the fence two houses away, and watched it fly into the unknown. We jumped the fences, and secretly peered over the edge to catch a glimpse of what was happening, and where the ball had landed. It was lit by an amber glowing streetlight that was posted behind a shed, and was always filled with a haze of questionable smoke and a constant rumble of cawing and cheering. Besides the beer pong backyard, every where on the block was fair game. We would traverse through anyone’s front and backyards, periodically in the open unlocked houses, sometimes as far as basements, and so much so that a handful of us would become distracted and forget we were playing, by proxy of a lingering once-freshly-cooked hot dog that was sitting out on a kitchen counter ready to be thrown away, or an enticing opportunity for one last Mountain Dew or freezer pop before our parents caught us and started to revert back to their old rule-enforcing ways. It was a game that always fizzled out with a “Aw! Come on! ONE more round!!! It’s the best part of the night!!” but it never happened.

As the night wound down, we would light off a few fireworks if any of the neighbors had them left over from the 4th of July. It wasn’t many, but always fun when it happened. As the kids got tired, tears would make an appearance over a silly dispute, usually by proxy of Ghost in the Graveyard, which signaled who needed to go to bed first. It would momentarily sober up the parents, sequentially reminding you of the crushing reality that your time has come to an end. Saying your goodbyes, your thank you’s, and telling anyone who needed to hear it that you would be the shuffle board champion next year, the final walk back to your now-dark home was unbearable. Pushing your skateboard home hard and fast using the rest of the day’s reserved energy, leaving one ear open with hopefulness of someone calling you back into the fun, or having one more chance to plant a kiss on the cool older girl who showed up, each sidewalk square passing underfoot, each time the sole of your broken and torn apart sneaker would sink into the cement, put you one step closer to it all becoming a memory. Your sunburnt skin, teeth covered in sugar sweaters, arms and legs sticky from day-long sweat, your knees and elbows crusted over in blood from skateboard bails and bike spills, were all signs of the annual block party done right. Turning the knob on your front door, the cool air conditioning that was left on all day kisses every part of your body, leading you into the kitchen to rummage through the refrigerator for left overs before making your way into the shower, then straight to bed. There would be a faint rumbling beyond the walls and windows. The party is still going on. What more is there to do? The day was perfect? Is there more? What am I missing? Did I turn in too early? Did my friends come back out after I left to keep playing? So many curiosities drift in and out of your mind, along with the echo of skateboard wheels, the pretty green eyes of the older girl you just met, and all the laughs shared between your friends. Your eyelids fall heavy, and summer comes to a close.