“When I was a child, I could see my father walk home from the station. We had an unobstructed view from here,” my neighbour Mrs. Berruezo told me once, reminiscing about old times. She had grown up in the house in the south-east corner of my street, about 600 yards from the train station as the crow flies. It was impossible for me to imagine open fields peppered with one-story houses where there now were high rises, houses, shops, crazy traffic.
We moved to that street in the western suburbs of Buenos Aires in 1981. I was 8. My siblings were 6, 4, and 2. The street was named after Emilio Mitre, a renowned Argentinean engineer and journalist. It runs from east to west, like the railway tracks. The country’s first railway ran through here and a station was built in 1858. The current building, late Victorian in style, dates from 1906 and is a Historic Landmark.
The history of my family is firmly rooted in this street. My maternal grandparents moved in on the 100 block in the mid-sixties. My mother used to walk past my father’s house on her way to school. He fell for her pretty freckles and her red hair. He admired her walk past many times until he screwed up the courage to ask her out. Here I am, writing their story a few decades later.
The street changes with the seasons. Lined with plane and jacaranda trees, it comes alive every spring with the cheerful colour of geraniums and the sweet perfume of gardenias. A russet, golden, and amber blanket covers it in the fall and it smells of burning dry leaves. Sundays have a distinctive smell all year round, the mouth-watering aroma of grilling meat.
The street, like the seasons, kept changing relentlessly. Neighbours came and went, some to other places, some to the afterlife. New houses went up, old houses were renovated. Some neighbours made a collection to build the little shrine to Our Lady. Mom-and-pop businesses opened and closed in the south-west corner (I hope the current incarnation, a green-grocer, is more successful than its predecessors. I like the hard-working owners, a young couple from Bolivia.)
Just like we used to walk to our grandparents’ house, now, my nieces, who also live on Emilio Mitre Street, walk to visit their grandparents. My parents never moved away. My husband and I will eventually move into our house on that same street. He says we should rename it with my family’s last name.
This street represents the past and the future of my family. I think we ought to rename it.
I wrote this story for the #363 Yeah Write Nonfiction Challenge. Click on the link below to read the other stories.
anaastrioreilly.com 
I really liked the way you took us through the changing seasons and times on the walk down your family’s street (I agree that you should change the name!). Generations of connection to a place brings forth such rich, valuable memory and history.
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It gives you a deeply-rooted sense of identity too.
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I love your title for this… it’s so true! And I really like how you highlighted those changes – the different generations, the cycles of the season. Nice work!
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Thank you for your kind words. I’m glad (and relieved!) you liked this piece.
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How nice that you have such a special familial history with a street (club, rename here!). I think these days it’s more unusual to have roots in the same place for so long like that (at least in the US).
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We tend to live close to our relatives.
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I love that symmetry in family history. The street one grows up on (along with phone number, and town restaurants) are such strong identifiers of place.
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I agree. I use my old phone number in passwords. Can’t ever forget that!
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This is a really nice, almost tactile, essay.
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Thank you!
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Hey there! I enjoyed reading this and I found it easy and pleasant to imagine the street, your family, and the future as well. Great job!
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Thank you!
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I think my favorite part of this was the second paragraph with its simple retelling of facts about the street. It made the street feel like a place that has always been and will always be, and then flowed so neatly into your human connection with the street. I felt like I was there.
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I like to add historical facts whenever I can. I’m such a nerd! 🙂
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This was a lovely retelling of your past via your street. I especially loved the sensory paragraph about the seasons. The title says it all.
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Thank you!
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