The Paseo

Maren:
The paseo ran for several blocks down through the Oakbrook neighborhood, where each of the streets' cul-de-sacs backed up to each other. It was a nice, relatively well maintained path that we used a lot as kids.  To go to the neighborhood park you could use the paseo to get there, or go on the street the other way, but the paseo was much more pleasant, in my opinion.

When I was really little, I didn't know how to pronounce it right and I used to think it was called the "Pa-sail."  Even when I finally did figure out that it didn't have an "L" sound at the end, I still didn't get that it was a Spanish word until much, much later.

In 6th grade when I had my pair of white roller skates with blue wheels, I got brave enough one day to ride down the gentle hill of the paseo that ran down from Parkwood to our street.  I bailed out in the grass when I was going too fast and got scared. I think I skinned my knee pretty bad.  Lesson learned.  I never got very good at rollerskating.  I wasn't brave enough.

The paseo was a great place to play hide-and-seek with all the other kids that lived on our street in the summertime.  This was one of my favorite childhood memories.  There were plenty of bushes, trees, and large, white boulders for hiding and the lamppost at the bottom of our street served as "base."  One year, around the age of 8, I would guess, I was running toward "base," being chased by whoever was "It," and I ran straight into the streetlight.  I'm not sure why I was so particularly clumsy, but I hit it hard enough that it threw me to the ground and I still have the image of looking up to all the kids standing in a circle, looking down at me to see if I was okay.  It was likely Barbara Kelsch that picked me up and carried me home.  Fortunately, I didn't break any bones or anything, but I think my arm and side were sore for a day or two.

On random late afternoons, I would often find Barbara Kelsch down there, sitting on one particular white boulder that was nice and flat and perfect for sitting.  She'd be there, with a glass of a little bit of hard liquor, cigarettes, and a knitting project.  I remember her coughing, but she was also so nice and I think all the kids felt really comfortable around her.  We would jump from boulder to boulder, climb the trees, and roll down the grass hill.

I also used the paseo for my paper route that covered Briarwood Place, whose cul-de-sac backed up to ours, as well as Sandalwood, that was down the hill under Briarwood, and then all the way down to Peppertree Court, which was down by the clock tower.  It was fun to ride a bike down all the hills and feel the breeze through my hair, and then a good little test of endurance to see how far I could pedal on the way back up without having to jump off my bike and walk up.

When I babysat for Gayle Peeples, who lived down on Sandalwood, it was easy to just walk down the hill to her house.  If it was dark when I was done babysitting, Mom wouldn't let me just come alone up the hill to come home.  She insisted that Gayle either drive me home, which was a very round about drive, or come up the hill with me.  It was slightly embarrassing, as I was 14 or 15 years old at the time, but now that I look back, it was quite dark and I suppose a stranger could be lurking somewhere. 

Dad and I would often utilize those paths when he would accompany me to go collecting for my paper route.  He'd bring Oscar along for a walk, then hang out on the sidewalk while I went up to each house that subscribed to the News Chronicle and asked them for their monthly bill.  Dad should have asked for a percentage of the money I earned for all the hours he spent taking me around doing that (not to mention driving me on the weekends to deliver the papers).

Curtis:
 The paseo served as a pretty exciting skateboard luge track and a great place to play jump-over-the-bush (once Pete Kelsch didn't quite make it over and we had to extract him from the bush), football, and basketball in the cul-de-sac. I also managed to put the Tough Skins creed to the test one time when I managed to fall off the back of somebody's go-cart and tore clean through the knee on my brand-new jeans.

Paseos and other commons type green areas are a grand idea. At our first home in Tucson, the common area between houses were a big selling point for us. But alas, no lush green lawns in Tucson, Arizona, only gravel and spiny cacti.

Dad:

The paseo was a good place for kids to play, for walking dogs, and a good shortcut to get to the shopping center on Los Arboles. Almost every time I took Oscar for a walk, I would start on the paseo and either go to the right towards the park or to the left towards Smokewood Ct.

 I remember one time, I was walking Oscar down towards Smokewood Ct, and when I got there, a very large German Shepherd who was not on a leash, came sprinting across the street in what I thought was attack mode. Oscar was growling and barking as if to say "come on, bring it on, I'm ready for you."  Oscar wasn't afraid of anything or anyone, and ready for a fight if the opportunity was there. I didn't want to be in the middle of this fight and more importantly I didn't know if the German Shepherd was after me or Oscar. As it turned out, he was after Oscar. I had to quickly decide what to do, so I grabbed Oscer and held him up so he would be safe from the attacking German Shepherd. The attacker was nipping and growling and barking, trying to get at Oscar, to no avail. Fortunately he didn't bite Oscar (or me). Soon, the owner across the street called him off and averted a potentially bad situation. After the dog was called off, Oscar was still tugging at his leash trying to get at the dog and settle things once and for all. Thinking back about this situation, I may have saved Oscar's life when I picked him up. 

Sometimes when walking on the paseo, especially when walking uphill, it was a good idea to watch for kids on runaway skateboards, roller skates, scooters, big wheels, etc. I was never in danger of runaways, but I'm sure they happened from time to time.  All in all, the paseo was a pleasant place to walk. It was maintained pretty well most of the time. Along the end of the Rosewood cul-de-sac, it was kind of a gathering place for kids playing games or adults hanging out, etc. Writing this has brought back many pleasant memories of the neighborhood where we, as a family spent many years.

Corey:
Concrete paths went down at least 4 hills or levels with crops of rocks at each level that were just the right size for sitting on. We rode bikes, skateboards, or skates down all of them at one time or another. My earliest memory is riding to the bottom of our street on my big wheel with a sandwich Mom made me for lunch. Barbara Kelsch was out on her rock, smoking and relaxing. We did all kinds of things down there. Smear the queer, bush jumping, all kinds of skate boarding, whiffle ball, Pete's basketball hoop, Frisbee golf. We would peel bark off the eucalyptus trees, swing from their drooping branches, build forts with the branches that were trimmed, before they were picked up. We had a little fort in the Dujan's bushes and a seat in their leaning pine tree that overlooked the Paseo. I never knew what a paseo was and always spelled it "pass-a-owe" in my mind. I remember the olive trees and purple stains on the concrete from the olives. I remember one of the trees fell down on Halloween from strong, eerie Santa Ana winds.