The Park and the Chip in the Newel Post

There is a park across from our house, and on the usually sunny and balmy Labor Day weekend it is always filled with the shouts of kids or families playing Frisbee or touch football. It is a pleasant sound that floats through my open kitchen door while I am puttering around.

I like that sound. So often, especially as children age, Labor Day weekend is the last chance for family time of any duration until the trio of winter holidays that begins with Thanksgiving.

A few years ago, I began photographing the park at different times of the year, usually from my back step, but often from the park itself.

The park was once part of a college campus, and much of the neighborhood grew up around it. My gable-and-wing Victorian with its Queen Anne influence was a single-family home that - for a short time a half century ago - served as a boarding house for coeds. I imagine that the chip in the newel post came from years of footlockers dragged down the front stairs. Fortunately, it is on the inside and is not visible, except when we descend the stairs.

The imperfection of our home is something we treasure, because to be perfect would be so bland and boring to us. The chip is also a reminder that our house has a history, as do its owners, and has been a silent witness to changing times. As I wrote here once before, I can often imagine the sound of clip-clopping horses bringing dairy wagons down the street a century ago, or the words of Churchill or Roosevelt coming from an old floor-model radio in the living room while Model Ts and their younger siblings putt-putted around the corner.

Today there are new sounds, and as I cook or clean, I welcome their presence from my kitchen door.

Life is lovely.