A couple weeks back, we (the tapeworm and I) reported that the unelected Tree Committee was raising a fuss about how the new Skateboard Park was going to take out few trees. In true Luddite fashion it was lamented that citizens in today’s St. Helena prefer trees over kids.

As if to prove how truly out of it I am, two letters appeared in the Star—both on the side of the trees—none on the side of the kids. (In the interest of full disclosure we received over 20 private e-mails and phone calls in favor of the kids, but knowing where the town sentiment lay, apparently no one was about to admit it in public). Such is the state of our Union, today.

On the other hand, ain’t life grand when your biggest problem isn’t dysentery from bad water, suicide bombers, or beheadings, but whether or not a couple of trees should be cut down (and replaced, elsewhere) that children might have fun.

According to the New York Times the good folks of St. Helena are hardly alone. As if on cue, the Times published a front page story (with no apology for being scooped) about some kids in Greenwich, Connecticut who transformed a vacant lot into a Wiffle ball field. On their own, they cleaned up the garbage, cut the weeds, cleared the poison oak, installed and painted a green fence (in homage to Fenway Park) put in a flag pole, and turned useless, wasted space into a Wiffle ball paradise for all the neighborhood kids.

For those of you with i-pods in your ears and play stations hooked to your belt, Wiffle ball is baseball, played with a plastic ball and a hollow plastic bat.

It is big time baseball in miniature—the perfect summer game for after dinner-until-darkness-falls, fun. Because the ball can’t travel far, it is tailor made for backyards and vacant lots.

‘Lest you think we are falsely romanticizing something we know nothing about, there is more than one famous wine maker and cohort of Mr. Robert Parker here in the valley who can attest to the fact that the corner of Allyn and Adams was once vacant. Mr. Broders lived on the lot next door. His kids, Keith and Nancy, turned that empty lot into a baseball field with a plywood backstop.

There was a time each summer, when the sidewalks were littered with bicycles as we peddled over there after dinners at each others’ homes to play some four-on-five or seven-on eight Wiffle and (occasionally) softball. If we didn’t have enough players, right field was an out—unless you were hitting left handed, which we often did, just because we could get away with it in Wiffle ball.

We played a lot up at Ronnie’s on Madrone, but that was a back yard (albeit with kitchen lights for late night ball). This was an entire corner lot.
No doubt we were noisy. No doubt the air was filled with the shrieks of happy kids. We never heard one complaint.

The Times reported a Greenwich neighbor as saying, “If I come home at 6 at night after working all day, I want peace and quiet.” That Gal would feel right at home in today’s St. Helena. She’d have lots of friends—especially among those against the skateboard park, and those who fought to minimize the size of the Boys and Girls Club gym—noise and traffic, you know.

Like those folks, she got a lawyer. They’re going to kill the Wiffle ball field--or at least regulate it. After all, the property’s worth $1.2 mill and there are drainage, traffic and “surprise, surprise” tree concerns.

Notice how the price of the lot was mentioned in the article, as well as drainage and trees? Sound familiar?

Is there a theme here?

Both St. Helena and Greenwich are affluent communities.

This is not a new phenomenon, but there is an ugly correlation between affluence, environmentalism and devaluing children in our world.

Neighborhoods have never been havens for peace and quiet. Any pretensions in that direction have been on a “relative” basis—as compared to the hustle and bustle of a city, for example.

Neighborhoods are full of life. They are messy because life is messy. They are noisy.

Car engines rev up early in the morning. Parties go into the night. Garbage trucks crack the pre-dawn silence. Dogs bark, cats meow. Did I mention blowers and mowers?

Small town neighborhood living is unique. Or once was.

Neighborhood living is getting your windshield cracked by an errant baseball and having kids steal your tomatoes for Halloween. Ideally, it’s being forced to creep down the street in your car, due to a kick ball game or bikes humming with playing cards in their spokes. It’s the smell of bar-b-ques in the summer and aromatic fires in the winter. It’s losing boards on your fence where kids crawl through and seeing your lawn torn up by endless “kick the can” games. It’s dogs leaving calling cards on your lawn and hearing the constant thump of a basketball below a driveway hoop. It’s kids selling lemonade and knocking on your door for endless donations. It’s the hum of roller skates, the ring of bicycle bells, the honking horns from lazy teens who won’t go to the door, to say nothing of the summer shouts of “Olly,olly oxen free” or “Marco Polo” from backyard pools.

Neighborhoods have never been about peace and quiet. Cemeteries are quiet. Neighborhood’s are about life. They’re about families. They’re about kids. And, with any luck, they are noisier than hell. It’s music to one’s ears—-at least ‘twas once thus.