Looking For The Wall

I was captured by this photo of a young man working with his family on facial improvements to their abode so I had to seek it out. The young man is the son of a former work associate who posted the projected on social media and with such interest, I decided to explore the construction site.

Not knowing the address but noticing the familiarity of the neighborhood, I wandered around the Museum district after my morning ride. Checking the side streets and avoiding the morning traffic, I ventured into neighborhoods not associated in my childhood due to being across the tracks, but in later years became aware that many girls lived in the area. A mix of single family housing and duplexes and apartment complexes line the street with small front yards and mixture of brick, wood, and shingles. Transients mixed with families some new and some established make up the neighborhood.

While I searched the placed I thought would produce the quest, I failed. Perhaps the photos posted online were at a different place unfamiliar to me, so I went back to the electronic posting to check landmarks. There had to be something that would show me the location.

There was a blue house. I had not seen a blue house so perhaps I had journeyed to a different place at a different time. I noted the sidewalks and post on the porches and then....there it was. An address was there above the dirt and shovels and canopy.

So, like a detective mystery, I knew an address but not a street.

The weather report called for rain, so I wondered about taking another venture, yet the mystery drew me in. A chill in the air but no water dropping from the sky did not hold me back. A few miles to get into gear and onto the exploration.

So up and down the back streets again I traveled seeking the golden quest of the wall built by a family preserving their property and making a creative statement in the surrounding grounds and staking a claim to the identity of their living area.

With an address in mind, I eliminated much of my previous path to investigate unknown sites and sounds. Remembering the site had heavy machinery around, I turned to a street I had bypassed before.

There it was! Behind plastic detour signs and heavy machinery and men standing in reflective yellow vest and hard hats, was the WALL.

Due to passing traffic limited to one land and huge men sitting on it, I could immediately appreciate the craftsmanship, but I had found it.

There was the WALL.