Life Returns To Normal In East Central Neighborhood

The public spotlight has faded, and the threat of a Tidyman’s Shopping Center replacing more than 37 of our homes appears to have subsided. So where are those pesky East Central Neighborhood activists now? A couple of our elderly friends have passed away, a few have moved, but most of us spent the past year trying to adapt to the lives we once knew.

For almost three years, I would come home from work, grab an armful of maps and documents along with a microwaved burrito and run back out to some meeting. Today, I sit at the dinner table with my family while my 5-year-old son pushes peas up his nose, and my 7-year-old daughter declares that he is “totally disgusting” and she would rather have a kitten. Lunch hours are actually spent eating instead of studying comprehensive land use maps.

On weekends, I read the Sunday paper in place of environmental impact statements, and a romance novel is on my night stand instead of a traffic study. Post-It notes still conceal my refrigerator, but instead of reminding me of an upcoming hearing, they keep me on schedule for my children’s swim lessons, music recitals, assigned snack days and other who-has-to-be-where-by-when information.

My parents still complain they can never get through to me by phone; however, now it’s usually tied up by kids and rarely is the call for “just Mom.”

The projects around the neighborhood that froze pending the outcome of the supermarket battle have resumed. Neighbors couldn’t motivate themselves to put more time and money into their homes only to see them leveled into a parking lot. Now, roofs have been laid, basements completed, and bathrooms added.

We feel that our lives have been returned to us. Some residents are more secure than others. I watch with interest (and usually compassion) as other older neighborhoods deal with growth and development. My husband thinks I still sleep with one eye open, and I probably do.

Are the East Central Neighborhood activists gone? No! After an all but absent life of our own, we are switching roles and learning to be family activists once again. Perhaps my children said it best when they said “welcome home, Mom.”

MEMO: Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion page. To submit a column for consideration, call Rebecca Nappi/459-5496, or Doug Floyd/459-5466.