Alleys

Sept 9, 2024

Greetings from the tour,

There is this small town I am friends with, Ludington, nested on the edge of Lake Michigan.  I have been running these streets there for decades, a few times a year whenever I visit.  I’ve run at every time of year, so I know what it’s like crowded with tourists, and in ‘off-season’, when the locals reclaim the restaurants and pubs, when the beaches have snow fences, and the parks are left to the seagulls.

It is like a lot of places that have become resort towns of sorts, the closer you get to water, the more expensive the homes, the more impressive the architecture, the landscaping, the cars in the driveways. There are wide boulevards with tailored medians, and narrow side streets with maples arching so thickly they form a canopy over the asphalt. On most streets there is a mixture of big front porches and modest stoops, elaborate pillared homes and slightly tilted cottages. 

And then, there are the alleys.

The image I have when I think of the word ‘alley’ is what you find in a big city; the grimy slots between buildings like offices or hotels.  Fire escapes and dimly lit doorways, shady characters leaning against wet brick walls.  An alley is a place your parents told you to stay out of.

 But this town, like some other small places like it, created most neighborhoods around the alley.  Yes, there are parks and sidewalks and amenities that are easy to enjoy.  But the alley was placed intentionally in many blocks, a hidden servant. 

Some houses do not have driveways interrupting their front yard.  Access to the garage, if there was one, was by the alley.  In some places it sets the character for the neighborhood.  The architecture is not diminished by sheds and cars and strips of macadam and bins of trash once a week.  The fronts of the houses are nicely kept.  The hedges neat, the flower beds tended, the grass manicured. 

The alley has its own charm, its own personality.  It is easy to miss. 

I ran deliberately down the alleys on this most recent trip.  It was not the first time, but perhaps the first time I paid close attention.  The roads in the alleys are not always paved, and when they are, not always maintained, which fits appropriately with the place.

Here is where the trash is picked up, where some deliveries are made, where yard debris is burned in barrels.  This can be the limbo where something is stored while its intention, and the value to the family, is determined. 

The garage roofs are moss covered, the shingles curling. Peeling paint was as common as new paint over peeled paint. Windows were painted over, or draped with sheets, or beach towels that had reached the bottom rung of family attraction.  Not every garage or shed falls to this level but many do.  There are some that have been converted to hobbies, decorated with signs hinting as to the interior, or old license plates or perhaps-purloined street signs.

Fences run the alley in spurts and fits. A well fashioned cedar plank leads to a sagging chain link followed by wrought iron and then a new vinyl privacy screen.  And for many yards there is nothing separating the alley from the life behind the house, you are simply backstage, with all the props and old scenery.  It is a sort of guarded intimacy, as if you share a secret with the actors you pass. 

I was running early enough that there were not many faces in the back yards.  A few souls out with their morning coffee, and I knew better than to interrupt.  I made my way between the blocks, these roads/not roads that pierce the green spaces, and became familiar with the real residents of the alley.

Here is a pile of bricks from something, here are some old pallets, leftover pieces of wood from a project, all waiting for some other use.  Library-neat stacks of firewood, birdbaths rimmed with green, trellises overgrown with ropy vines, pots with last year’s flowers, or maybe from three years ago.

There are broken things, things waiting for paint or parts or someone to haul it away. Bicycles, parts of cars, trailers, campers, a wheelchair, a stroller with missing wheels. Wheels with missing purposes.  A snowmobile wrapped in canvas, mummified, or perhaps it was cocooning, waiting for the next season.  Garbage cans of all ilk, the new shiny plastic giants and the old metal beasts, dented and rusted from countless fillings and emptying and flinging and waiting.

Nothing surprised me until I saw a phone booth, fully intact, tucked up against a garage. In some other moment I would have knocked on the door to find out the story behind that, or the one being written now.

Reading back over this it seems more sordid than it is.  There were places you would be tempted to clean up or complain about, but for the most part it was like running past a series of a certain kitchen drawer that collect whatever flotsam we all handle at one time or another. 

The alley provides a view into the backyard life of many homes.  Picnic tables and gazebos and yard games and outdoor bars, small pools.  Chicken coops, dog runs, engine hoists.  Some you could guess from how the front yard looks, but often only the alley would provide this insight.

My run was slow enough to see all this and consider it, without lingering long enough for the homeowners to notice me.  It was an interesting contrast to the routine tour of the neighborhood, the one that most tourists might enjoy.  These alleys provided me with a complementary notion of the houses that face the street, one that seemed more familiar.  The imposing façade on the street has a more approachable personality on the alley side.

Maybe it’s a silly thing to take note of, but if a town has a personality, I think to get to know it intimately you sometimes need to look in unlikely places.  Where the fish are cleaned, the diner where the road crews get coffee, the fifties-era motel, the little grocery that features, Deli, Beer and Bait. 

And maybe the alleys.

Hope this finds you wandering between,

David

Copyright © 2024 David Smith