Becoming Mr. Bruce

As the quiet set in here in the Italian Alps this evening, I thought of this old post from nearly five years ago – Enjoy!

allenrizzi

When I was a child of ten living in Southern California during the late 1950s, I was very typical for the times. Together with my friends, I would maraud our little middle class neighborhood looking for simple things to do, from catching butterflies to skateboarding. Most of our neighbors forgave our minor trespasses of property and calm because we were all living in the land of Ozzie and Harriet. We did no real damage as we were just kids being kids.

Sometime in 1959, a new neighbor moved in two doors up from our house. His name was Mr. Bruce and he was immediately completely intolerant of me and all children on our block. He would scrub and then hose off the sidewalk in front of his house daily and yell at us if we dared transverse the section of the public right of way in front of his property…

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