Historical April 1983 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Recently, I was in a neighborhood quite unlike Parkview.
It was a modern subdivision of one-story homes.
It was an attractive area except that the houses all looked alike; the only distinctive elements were the front entrances. What distinguished the area physically from any like Parkview was the lack of trees.
In the sunlight it looked barren in spite of the houses.
The friend who lived in this neighborhood asked me where I lived and what it was like.
As a result, I found myself comparing and contrasting Parkview with subdivision living, and Parkview came out the winner.
To me, the most surprising and most depressing aspect of this new subdivision was the fact that there were no people in it over the age of 50.
My friend did not know the reason for this, but she thought it was wonderful that everyone was the same age.
To my way of thinking, one of the most attractive features of Parkview is that the ages range from infancy to one resident who tops 100! I like seeing senior citizens walk their dogs on the same blocks where younger citizens wheel babies in strollers.
When I was a child in Parkview, there was an old lady who walked through the area almost on a daily basis.
She wore long black dresses with black stockings and high-top tennis shoes. Of course, all the kids called her “Old Lady Tennis Shoes.” We were wary of her because was different, but no one questioned her right to wander Parkview.
There was another older lady, a resident here for many years, who used to pass out raw potatoes to the trick-or-treaters at Halloween: We thought she was a little different, too, but she was part of Parkview, part of what made the neighborhood unique.
Another major difference between the. two areas is that Parkview seems to welcome diversity whereas the other shuns it.
The conversation confirmed the fact that most of the people living there are much like one another. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had told me that all the residents even had the same kinds of jobs, stifling though that might be.
On the other hand, in any one block of Parkview, it would be a simple task to find a dozen differences in life styles.
Even houses which may seem to be of the same decade on the outside are often of completely different eras on the inside; yet those with modern tastes can feel at home in Parkview. Certainly, there is no sameness in terms of occupation; the poet, the professor and the physician all thrive here, providing the neighborhood with diversity.
My friend asked me to describe Parkview, and the best description I could come up with was that it was eclectic.
It is a neighborhood composed of many facets, each contributing to making the area unique.
It is a place where divergent life styles live side by side, where people don’t look for sameness.
In many ways, it is a microcosm of this country and its melting-pot society.
My friend’s neighborhood, on the other hand, has been filtered.
For me and others who choose Parkview, the flavor just wouldn’t be the same.
Originally published in The Paper, April 1983.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1983_04.pdf, printed page(s) 7; PDF page(s) 7.
