Trammel Street

.....njJ||IÍP;,'^MlJii.li|,!'|ll|\f| ?^\% SM $r H*A1 Trammel Street By BETTY W. PETERSON Who can know the ways of immortality but the immortal? For I, mortal human that I am—vulnerable, frail, can at best only wonder at these, and god-like, pass judgement on the wisdom of such reasoning as would grant immortality to some, while denying others. As I stand looking at the dogwood trees in our yard, they are immortal, I think, spanning generations—ever the same. But people change—they die. Why? Why must warm flesh, and eyes that speak to us of love, wither and die among the pink and white bouquets? This day, my husband and I brought our little six year old daughter toTrammel Street, and the upstairs room in that big house beyond the dogwoods, which was mine as a child, is now her room. The room has been painted many colors since then, but it hasn't changed—not really, because I can look at it and remember it as it was then, and it is so. And now Carrie will make her own memories, and still, it will not change. But one thing troubles me, as I stand watching Carrie examine ant hills beneath the tree—the same tree with new ant hills that haven't changed. The people who gave me so many special memories, no longer live on Trammel Street. And the old house next door where Granny lived, 4 has been torn down and replaced by two housetrailers, square and void of character . Why were these people so special and such a vital part of my growing up? Because they were old. My parents were one of only two young couples living here then, and the rest had been here so long that the years had lost their importance . But now the street is filled with the sounds of the very young. Granny was the very oldest of them all, and she lived alone over there. She seldom came out of the house and few people went inside, because of the wild stories she told when she did come out. And some said she pulled a gun on the kids who went to her door for treats one Halloween night, but that night, she had invited me in and given me an apple. It had a rotten spot on it, but I didn't let on, because it pleased her so to be able to give it to me. I knew people thought she was crazy, but I wasn't afraid of her. And sometimes when I went in to see her, she let me play with the big doll on her bed. Its name was Dolly Dean, and it was almost as big as I was. She told me her son had sent it to her from overseas before he was killed. And then she told me of how much she and Dolly Dean missed him and how sometimes Dolly cried at night. When I was twelve, she asked my mother if I could come and help her wash windows, and said she would give me lunch and fifty cents. My mother said I could and that I could take the fifty cents, but not the lunch, because she didn't think the food was clean. And my friend Judy had warned me that she might put poison in it. I ate the lunch and didn't take the fifty cents when she offered it from her little wrinkled change purse. They say she didn't live long after we moved away. Lucy and Oscar lived across the street in a little house with brown shingles. Lucy couldn't have children, but her stomach looked as though she had borne many. I don't recall hearing Oscar speak a full sentence during the whole time we lived there. It seems he was always sitting in a straight-backed chair by the front door, leaning back against the house asleep. Lucy said he had built the house for her, but somehow, I couldn't picture it. She was always singing religious songs, although she never went to worship anywhere . "Praise Him, praise Him...