Birch Street Half-double, watercolor

 

A 1969 watercolor when I still signed the front of paintings...(see bottom right corner fence); this is actually a portrait of two childhood friends who lived in the half-double (duplex) Eddie on the left, Tommy on the right. I hope Tommy is alive, we lost Eddie the summer of '71 which was the most dismal post-college period of my life.

The wrought iron fence in the foreground supported the most florabundant rambling rose I have ever known, ever. The scarlet blooms were so dense we would hide behind the screen of red to mimic the huckster selling strawberries from a truck in the early summer. With emphasis on the STRAW...berries we mimiced the parrot which lived up the end of the street behind a lace curtain, a bird we never saw, assuming the thing talking back at us was a bird. We never knew who lived in that house but would stand by the window and make typical parrot prompts to listen for as a reply.

The neighbors living there now would shoot you and the gangs would stalk your trembling body out of the 'hood. America post Vietnam. War is hell.