Life in the 'Hood

More than a decade ago, when Jude and I bought our house in the Waverly-Belmont neighborhood in Nashville, many of my friends (and family) thought I was nuts.  The general concensus was that I had moved into the 'hood.  It wasn't safe.  Drug deals.  Shootings.  Violent crime.  Burglaries.  Armed robberies.  All under the umbrella of "crime."

Truthfully, I was a little nervous myself after Jude and I got married in February 2003 and I moved into our house on Elliott Avenue.  Jude had lived in a house in an emerging East Nashville neighbborhood for several years before we got married, so it was no big deal for her.  Me, different story.  I was coming from Roderick Square, a small development within a larger subdivision in Franklin, where everyone looked alike, talked alike and in all probability, voted alike.  I quickly realized that was not the case in our Waverly-Belmont neighborhood.

First of all, people surely did not look alike.  On our street, Elliott Avenue, there was a tenured Vanderbilt professor (and his wife and son), college students, musicians, a retired African-American preacher and his wife, an African-American who was a long time employee of CSX Railroad, just to mention a few.  To be sure, there were people like Jude and me, but there also were peopple unlike Jude and me.

And it was a beautiful thing.  It still is, actually, a decade later.

The people on my street are my frirends and acquaintances.  When I'm out for a walk with Joe, I stop and we chat amiably.  We catch up on neighborhood gossip.  They all know (and love) my sons.  We talk sports, politics and family.  It's a true neighborhood, or at least what I think a neighborhood should be.  It's a melting pot of different ethnicities, different jobs and different politics.   But it's our neighborhood and I love it.

I spent the first several years of my marriage to Jude here.  Both of my boys were born and have spent their formative years in our neighborhood.  They're experiencing diversity - living it - every day and that's important to Jude and me.  Everyone is not like us - does not look like us - and that's a wonderful thing.  Living where I live has enriched my life and changed who I am and what I believe. It's been a life changing experience for me and it's the greatest gift Jude could have given me.