I wonder if the birds realize how much things have changed. Do they fly over and think, “Wow, they are really packing the houses in!”? Are their favorite trees still there? Do they move their nests from year to year?

We were driving down Van Dyke Road yesterday. The first road I remember. The first road my feet touched. Probably my knees. My bike tires. But for the sign with its name, it was almost unrecognizable. Every empty lot that we ran around, cut across, kicked balls, and chased each other in, every lot was filled. House after house.

Frank Sinatra sang, “There used to be a ballpark”:

And there used to be a ballpark
Where the field was warm and green.
And the people played their crazy game
With a joy I’d never seen.

We went to see the Nortons – anchors of our former VanDyke Road neighborhood. We laughed and hugged, with the joy I remember, the joy that still lives on, maybe not on the same road, but always in the path of my heart.
The birds are still singing, because they know where to look. Up. Always up. Sitting in the Norton house our spirits were forever young, forever “warm and green.”