Call it 'curb cut appeal'
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By STEVE BATIE
Lee Newspapers
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 1:08 PM CDT
LINCOLN, Neb. -- My neighborhood -- Rancho del Fifties I like to call it -- is not one of the city’s older areas.
It is, in fact, a mere pup compared to the old neighborhood, platted back before the Capitol towered over the prairie, before indoor plumbing became common, long before anyone alive today was even a glimmer in Mommy’s eye.
In Rancho del Fifties, however, I’ve actually met people who remember when the neighborhood was known fondly as Fertile Valley, testament to the boomers who once crowded its schools and skate-boarded its streets and climbed its trees.
And now own its houses.
You can tell at a glance that this is an older neighborhood.
No endless acres of rolled-out bluegrass here. The lawns sport a veritable cornucopia of plantlife. Bluegrass, to be sure, but also fine examples of rough fescue and rye, spurge and foxtail.
And crabgrass.
The only spindly trees to be seen are the 3-year-old Russian olives soaring a majestic 7 feet in my own backyard. Maples and oaks and sycamores more than 40 feet tall shade the others.
The houses are universally ranches, clad in any of a dozen shades of red brick made from our very own crappy soil in the great ovens south of town.
There’s not a second story -- nor, sadly, a welcoming front porch -- to be seen from the top of the hill to the bottom of the valley.
And then there are the garages.
Yes, we have garages.
Singles, doubles -- even a few whose extra depth would make them more appropriate for an airport than a residential district.
You don’t need any more evidence that ours is not a freshly minted suburb than to look at our garage doors.
No, there. Around the side of the house. Kind of in the backyard?
Look, just follow the driveway. You’ll see it.
Not so in the ’burbs, where the garage doors stand front and center, so prominent, in fact, that it’s sometimes hard to find your way to the front door.
Call it "curb cut appeal."
Back when automobiles first arrived on the scene, people parked them in little backyard buildings off the alley (remember alleys?), displacing the horses and buggies they once had housed there.
Time passed, and cars moved from expensive and unreliable luxuries to daily necessities - sorta like computers and cable television.
As the car became a more prominent part of our lives, it began to occupy a more prominent place in our landscape.
Eventually, a reclaimed shed or stable wasn’t enough; it had to have a dedicated garage.
Eventually, a spot at the farthest reaches of the lot -- chosen originally to keep the equine stench as far from the bedrooms as possible -- wasn’t convenient enough; the garage had to be up close and personal.
In fact, eventually, it had to be attached to the house -- lest drivers and passengers wet their heads and soil their shoes as they debarked.
Eventually, one car wasn’t enough. Nor two. Nor three … if there were teenagers about.
And eventually the garage had grown past all understanding (and good sense) and had become bigger than the house itself.
So here we are today, surely mere months away from real estate ads that read:
"Four-car garage with side parking strip on major arterial. Easy access. Owners’ association pays for snow removal. House attached."
Send your home repair and remodeling questions to: HouseWorks, P.O. Box 81609, Lincoln, NE 68501, or e-mail: houseworks@journalstar.com.
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