Drunken Irish

         Walking out my front door you have 2 options, go right; find your self at the park with a plethora of per-junior high "park rats" or go left; find your self at the neighborhood elementary school with the junior high drop outs smoking camel reds. Going left is the best option. As you begin to walk up the block you find houses medium to small size all built in the 1920’s. My house seems significantly bigger and older then all the houses on the block. My mom said the people who originally built our house bought it out of the Sears catalog. The “American Four Square” is what it was called. Each house on the block is only about 10 feet or less away from the house next to it. Each house only has about a 50 foot lot total, very close for comfort with little to no back yard. All the houses seem pretty average to boring, nothing grand or extravagant about them, maybe some paint chipped here or there. You walk past 5-6 houses and your already at the top of the block, looking at a brick wall. On top of the brick wall is the field that connects to the elementary school. Once to the wall you turn right. As you walk the wall seems to shrink into the grown while a tall metal fence sprouts up to keep the small children from falling off the ledge or running into the street. Go three more blocks in the same direction and to come to the corner of Syndicate and Randolph. Here is where you can catch the number 74 city bus. 

             You take the bus west down Randolph seeing more closely laid houses becoming more plan and rough looking.  After a few blocks you cross a bridge, this leads into the West End, one of the original neighborhoods built in the city. My house is technically on the edge of the West End, with only about a two block difference from Lexington Pkwy which makes up the cut off. As you travel on the 74 there are liquor stores, small grocery stores and bars, lots of small bars. The West End is home to working middle class, white, hmong and hispanic families. It is also home to young street racing enthusiasts. On a summer night you can find young people gathered outside under the hood of colorful dodge neons, chevy impalas, evos, ions and so on. You can also hear the sound of their booming engines at night running up and down the streets. 

              As the bus continues down Randolph we reach West 7th, a street home to tattoo shops, restaurants, head-shops and more bars.  It is said that the city was built by drunken irishman, which is why we have so many bars. The bus will go right on West 7th and start its new journey deeper into the heart of downtown, leaving the West End behind it.