Menlo Boulevard is Home

I am a "Menlo Mom". By definition, this is just a group of moms who became friends because our kids were all blessed to grow up together on Menlo Blvd. between Maryland and Downer. My good fortune to be a Menlo Mom means the world to me.

The boulevard was where we all came together to collectively hold our breath while our kids climbed trees, to cheer on their soccer/baseball/football pick up games, to swap tales of woe as they made their way through the petri dish of angst that is middle school, and to support each other as we watched them gradually move off the boulevard and into cars and into the night and finally off to college.

I have treasured photos that look like they could've been in Life magazine. Kids buried in leaves they'd collected from all our yards and hauled to the boulevard like ants moving dirt. Kids covered in mud from hosing down a very patient mom's side yard until it was a mudslide. Kids holding candles in vigil on the boulevard on the evening of September 11, 2001.

When my boys were very little, it was hard for them to even pronounce "boulevard". It was sometimes "olivard" or "volavard". Still, they knew the importance of it as a gathering place.

A few years ago, I found a high school essay on my computer about the tree they all used to sit in, written by one of my boys. It was fascinating to read the perspective of a teenager - how he held those memories.  With his permission I can share this:

" The tree was one common factor and the fondest memory of every kid that was part of the Menlo Boulevard Crew. If someone needed to have a serious talk, they went to the tree and found their respective perch, although their privacy wasn’t always guaranteed. It was in the braches of this tree that many kids gained a friend, admitted their first crush, or broke their first bone (as I should have)."

One day the dreaded red "X" showed up on the tree. Our Menlo kids first petitioned the village to leave it there and we encouraged this civic sensibility in them. But, the inevitable happened while they were at school one day, and they returned home and dumped their backpacks on the stump of their tree. They all signed it with  Sharpies before it was ground out. It was a very sad day on the boulevard and a sort of coming of age for the kids. Things pass. We move on.

In my son's words:

Looking back, it was at this moment that I really realized what this tree had actually symbolized. I had always thought about it as just a tree, a part of the boulevard, a piece of nature to talk to girls in or to jump off of. It was then that I realized, staring at the pathetic remains, that it was a major part of my childhood.... Although it would be nice to still have a piece of my childhood as important as that around, I probably wouldn’t be the same person if I hadn’t had to deal with not only the disappearance of something I will always remember but more importantly the transformation of the people who once made up the inseparable Menlo Crew.

Menlo has been the essence of neighborhood and community for us. Of course there are many wonderful neighborhood blocks in Shorewood - but for us, this house, on this block, was something I think my husband and I both instinctively knew would be the place in which our boys would grow up. This was the place we could really and truly call home. By sheer luck there were hordes of kids living here that were within 3 years of each other in age.

The Menlo Moms gathered then, as we still do, as often as possible. With hors d'oeuvres and some wine. With hugs and laughter. With lots of "catching up" now that we don't see each other regularly at school or sports events. Over the years, our group has grown to include what we called "Menlo Moms by proxy" - meaning they had kids who were friends of our
kids, but they didn't live on Menlo.  And so, of course, they have a seat on the kitchen barstool and we are all friends. Our kids became, and remain, the "Menlo Crew". The moms became, and remain, "The Menlo Moms".