Just Two Front Doors

Approach my home from either side and it looks like the front door.  Oh yes, the one that faces the street, it’s called Hawk’s Eye Drive, is welcoming to guests, family, and the two of us after a trip away.

On the other side is a fairway.  It’s called number 6. It too is welcoming to golf balls, the morning sound of mowers and many little birds.  It also welcomes the sun each morning with the promises of the new day.

So, why no back door?  I guess a back door is not only a real difference from a front door in almost every place on earth, here the difference is in the mind.  As a kid growing up, the back yard was full of life; a garden, a play yard, a sand box, my almost real train engine, and mother’s twice weekly wash hanging on the line.  Wind and solar energy did the trick. It was renewable and sustainable.  Can’t beat that.

The front yard was full of life too.  Passing walkers, cars, and jump rope right in the middle. Hopscotch too with colored chalk.  In winter snowball fights, street hockey, and shovels nearby. And passersby with scarves, boots, and heads turned away from the blowing snow.

So both doors were often the same.  People.

More people now, on fairway number six, go by each day than will ever go by on the street.  Two hundred golfers.  Ten to fifteen cars on the drive.  Things have been reversed.  Hundreds went by on the street so many years ago where we lived as kids.  Only the few friends and neighbors went by in the “back yard”. Now the friends come in through the front and the passersby on the golf course go one way only.

So, despite one side being opposite from the other, no real back door.  Just two front doors.