My Street

I live on a quiet city street...not much goes on here. This is the Lake Hills area in Bellevue Washington...also known as East Bellevue--where more of the working class and middle income people live. It's not the section Bill Gates lives in! Our modest home is on the left.

I grew up outside Cleveland Ohio and lived many places--Detroit Michigan right before the move here in 1975. We looked in Seattle for a funky older home back then, but the banks were practicing red lining (a practice in which banks in effect walled off many inner-city neighborhoods from mortgage loans) and we couldn't get a loan there so we looked elsewhere. I was disappointed back then to end up in a rambler style home and not an old one with nooks and crannies more explorable. And , at the time, I wanted the urban Seattle lifestyle.

Now I'm fine with this quiet street and not parking issues and less traffic. Got old? Yeah...and I had come from the inner city lifestyle in Detroit where there was always action on our street. At first I also missed the diversity of the city life. But over the years Bellevue has become very diverse---a GOOD thing. We have people from many countries living on our quiet street. I've met people from Pakistan, Vietnam, Mexico, Japan, China, and peoples of diverse ethnicities and religions as times have changed, for the better here. We live right aroung the corner from Seattle's Jewish Day School. But I do so miss the brighter colors of many of the homes in some Seattle neighborhoods and the funkiness I sought so many years ago. But we are settled and happy here altho we go into Seattle a lot for many activities not found here.

Now I hope I can link this properly to Kendall's One Street project!