I enjoy writing fantasy in my spare time (you know this, Dr. E, though other commenters here do not): maybe someday I might make a name for myself at it. The genre has always been a bit looked down upon--even Tolkien and Lewis, bless them, couldn't do much to change that--but more and more, as I read them and try to emulate them, I find the term "fantasy" less applicable. After all, what "fantasy" do we find in stories like Narnia, or in The Lord of the Rings? We find amazing adventures, yes, but also reality. The streets and roads of the Shire are more like how things once were in our world than the world of today is like the supposedly idyllic, sci-fi future imagined in, say, Star Trek. Fantasy always builds off of reality, but the "reality" we have today is less like a fantasy and more like a nightmare. Luckily, I have a lot of great influences to build upon in my own works, however incomplete they are thus far. Memories like this, about something as simple as how streets used to be, give my own imaginings more life. It's good to have something to escape to, to know that I can create in my head something like the world society did away with before I was born. I'm fortunate enough to be able to imagine it, even if I can't experience it.
Tony, you described the streets of New York perfectly! On 113th street in Ozone Park we also had vendors that went door to door carrying suitcases with everything you needed. A grinder would travel the street with his machine selling his sharpening skills. Everyone had knives and scissors! Periodically there were decorated carts pulled by ponies for kids to ride in. Milk was delivered in bottles from a horse pulled wagon. Cars were rarely on the road making it a playground for ring'o levio, hide and seek, potsie, simon says , stick ball, etc. Each house had a stoop where you could sit until supper time and listen to radio serial brodcasts which activated your imagination. Salesmen arrived often. I remember that my father bought a vacuum cleaner which lasted forever, and a Douey Rheims Bible with illustrations that is now only found in antiquarian book stores
I enjoy writing fantasy in my spare time (you know this, Dr. E, though other commenters here do not): maybe someday I might make a name for myself at it. The genre has always been a bit looked down upon--even Tolkien and Lewis, bless them, couldn't do much to change that--but more and more, as I read them and try to emulate them, I find the term "fantasy" less applicable. After all, what "fantasy" do we find in stories like Narnia, or in The Lord of the Rings? We find amazing adventures, yes, but also reality. The streets and roads of the Shire are more like how things once were in our world than the world of today is like the supposedly idyllic, sci-fi future imagined in, say, Star Trek. Fantasy always builds off of reality, but the "reality" we have today is less like a fantasy and more like a nightmare. Luckily, I have a lot of great influences to build upon in my own works, however incomplete they are thus far. Memories like this, about something as simple as how streets used to be, give my own imaginings more life. It's good to have something to escape to, to know that I can create in my head something like the world society did away with before I was born. I'm fortunate enough to be able to imagine it, even if I can't experience it.
Tony, you described the streets of New York perfectly! On 113th street in Ozone Park we also had vendors that went door to door carrying suitcases with everything you needed. A grinder would travel the street with his machine selling his sharpening skills. Everyone had knives and scissors! Periodically there were decorated carts pulled by ponies for kids to ride in. Milk was delivered in bottles from a horse pulled wagon. Cars were rarely on the road making it a playground for ring'o levio, hide and seek, potsie, simon says , stick ball, etc. Each house had a stoop where you could sit until supper time and listen to radio serial brodcasts which activated your imagination. Salesmen arrived often. I remember that my father bought a vacuum cleaner which lasted forever, and a Douey Rheims Bible with illustrations that is now only found in antiquarian book stores
" Street " is alive with meaning.