These are the declines, ascents, ups and downs of life

    I’m starting to get this déjà vu feeling, like I’ve been here before. The feeling I’m talking about involves my home and the neighborhood in which I live. The strange thing is that I’m having those same feelings, but the causes are from opposite ends of the economic spectrum.

    I’ll start with some history of where I used to live before moving to Winters. The city I lived in was Flint, Michigan. Made famous by Michael Moore in the documentary “Roger & Me.” More specifically I lived in a 10 square block area that was bordered by downtown and the cultural area where we had venues for music, arts, education, and science.

    Diane and I owned a 100-year-old farm style house, we loved our house and we loved the neighborhood. But even when we bought there, Flint and our neighborhood was already in decline. We just didn’t see it.

    Flint’s economy peaked in the mid ‘60s around the time that my family moved there. Many of the grand old houses in our neighborhood had already been converted to multi unit rental apartments. The little store around the corner that had once been a small grocery store now primarily sold booze and cigarettes. The neighborhood was changing from owner occupied to transient tenancy.

    With that change came people who didn’t care about maintaining their homes or neighborhood. There was an increase in crime, in particular drug related. This was when “crack” was the big thing and we now had “crackheads” renting across the street from us.

    This was in the early ‘90s before everyone had cell phones, so the payphone at the mini mart was always being used for drug deals. I got to the point where I would keep bolt cutters under my seat in the car and in the early morning on my way to work, I’d stop and cut the cord to the handset. Eventually the phone company just quit fixing it, but that didn’t make the neighborhood any better.

    Homes were still being burglarized, loud people still loitering around, cars coming and going at all hours of the day and night. It got to the point where we just hated it. We hated where we lived. We still loved our home and the sanctuary of our big fenced-in back yard, but we hated our neighborhood and most of our neighbors.

    Luckily in 1999, when my brother asked us to come to California and help him expand his business, we were able to quickly sell our house. We had tried to sell it a year earlier with no luck. Also as confirmation that we were making the right move, one of our “good” neighbors was randomly shot through a window and killed as he slept in his bed just a week after we signed the purchase agreement to sell our house.

    So, that was our experience with a neighborhood in decline. Now let’s fast-forward 15 years and here we are in a home we love in Winters. The house that we bought in 2001 is situated on the block just behind the Buckhorn. When we bought it we thought it was great to have all these amenities within a short walk. We had everything we needed restaurants, video stores, hardware, bank, drug store, parks, Community Theater, dry cleaners, and yes, even a small Irish Pub just a few doors down from us.

    We loved it. Sure there were some annoyances, like the constant smell of grilled meat, or sometimes the Irish Pub got loud, or one of their patrons puking in my yard, or people parking on our street for an event at the Community Center.

    All minor annoyances, at least in the beginning.

    Unlike the decline we saw in Flint, Winters downtown is in an ascent. Business is booming and downtown is a destination for locals and out-of-towners to come and have fun. Yes, I know that I personally contributed by starting a business that draws people to town and yes, it’s only going to get busier, more homes being built, a new hotel, more and expanding businesses, economically everything is definitely looking up.

    So why am I making this sound like a bad thing? To me it feels like opposite sides of the same coin. I love my house and fenced in back yard but I’m getting to the point where I hate my neighborhood.

    The patio of a nearby business can get so loud that even with our windows closed, we can barely hear our TV, let alone try and relax on the front porch. Downtown customers and employees are always parking on our street (because there aren’t enough alternatives) and are coming or going until the wee hours of the morning. All in all it’s not a very peaceful place anymore.

   What am I going to do about it? At this point there’s not much I can do. I’m still underwater on my mortgage, so I can’t sell, and who would want to live here anyway. Sure someday someone may want to put a business in my house or on the lot, but I’m not holding my breath. For now I’ll just continue riding that rollercoaster, full of ups and downs, declines and ascents, twists and turns, you know, Life.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 15 of the following link. Winters Express 4/23/15