Up on the Rooftop

That's a picture of my house (compare to my masthead above) and the Firestone, in 1951, back when God laid an egg. (I grabbed it off the Florida Photo Archive Collection, one of the coolest spots on the web if you like that sort of thing.)

60 years later, the trees are bigger, the road is wider, and the Firestone no longer sells gas, but both buildings are still there and holding on. Normally, they're the best neighbors I could ask for. No funny smells, no littered lot, gone at night, and not fussy about us using their back wall to show movies on at night. Well, they may not know about that last part, but you get the idea. Through some right of easement situation, we use the alley that runs along the back of their property to access our parking lot - it's the only way in or out of our complex. Otherwise we play catch as can catch on the downtown streets.

So, Monday night I'm sitting in my house doing my best imitation of a little old man, afghan tucked around me in my chair, eating shepard's pie my sister made, when my friend and I hear a great big BOOM! Normally, a sound like that means that a few people are having a very bad night on Monroe Street. We jump up and peer out the front window, but no wreck. Must have been a block or two away, so we return to the tv. Then, again, BOOM! BANG! and people babbling. What the fuck?!

I jump into my flip flops and head outside to figure out if I need to call 911. It seems to be mostly coming from the back, and as I round the corner I realize, between the giant lights and the heavy machinery I can see poking up over the lip of the building, what's going on. They're reroofing the god damned Firestone.

And it's going to take 3 weeks, dusk to dawn.
And I won't have access to my parking lot entrance that entire time.
And there are chunks of concrete all down in our lot and my side yard.
And it sounds like the demolition derby.

They could have at least warned us. The joys of living downtown. Anybody need a house sitter for a couple of days?