More meetings and more lemonade

Today we met Renee at 9AM at our house to discuss what had happened so far and to hear what she thought about our approach and the project’s process. Halfway through our coffee, the phone rang and Maria called to let us know that Mr Bankston would be able to meet us at 11AM at the Kingsley Association. Mr Bankston is the director at the Kingsley Association in Larimer and had to sign off on the Grant application Renee had submitted to the Heinz Foundation. We hadn’t met him yet, but were interested in getting to know him.
Despite the short notice, Renee was able to shift an upcoming phone meeting and said she would join us for the meeting, so we used the little time remaining and prepared a short presentation on our work and our process.

When we arrived at 11:15 AM at the Kingsley, Maria and Renee were already there. While waiting for Mr Bankston, we looked at some pictures from last night’s block captain meeting to shorten the wait.

During our meeting, Mr. Bankston gave us a detailed introduction into the history of the Kingsley Association. After that, we explained what we had done so far. It turned out that Mr.Bankston had heard a lot about it already from a variety of different sources. He agreed on our approach and strategy towards Larimer and emphasized the time it takes to get to know someone. He therefore appreciated our intention not to come with a fixed and determined idea, but rather get to know the neighborhood and its residents first before developing any proposal.

When we left the meeting it was time to head over to Meadow street to open our daily Lemonade stand.We tried to be there at 2pm the latest. – When we arrived the thermometer showed 94F (=35C), a perfect temperature for ice-cold lemonade or and iced coffee. The atmosphere was humid and it felt like everything was wet. In comparison to the day before the street felt very quiet. Instead of people there was some tension lingering around. Or was it the thickness of the heat?
The advantage of a routine is, that you don’t have to decide what to do next or wether to do it at all. Table first, then the two signs, followed by the two chairs, the umbrella, the icebox, the pitcher with the coffee, the cups, a bag for trash and the sugar.
Ready for business.

It was slow for the first hour, so slow that we felt nothing would happen today. There were even less cars on the street. At around 3pm our first returning costumer strolled through the heat. It was the daughter of the woman who owned the house right next to us and who had already got a cup of lemonade (and a free 2nd) yesterday. She was on her way home from the last day of summer camp and stopped for the lemonade. We prepared her one, she paid and asked, if she could get her 2nd free (the “refill”) too? We were caught by surprise. Our idea for the refill had been that customers would return with their old cup and get it refilled. Now we had to learn that a “free refill” could mean different things.

A little later a college teacher who was riding his bike along Meadow Street stopped, got a large lemonade and chatted a bit with us about what we were doing. He was riding through the neighborhood and was surprised to find us there.

20 minutes passed by until another guy on a bike came by and stopped to ask what we did and how much a lemonade would be. After hearing our prices he decided to choose a small one. While we poured the lemonade, he deposited his money on our table so he could receive his lemonade and continue his ride. When he had left and we took the money off the table we discovered that he had given us only 30 cents. Since it had looked like he was living around the corner, we assumed he would notice and return with the missing amount.

We had just decided to close for the day when a guy stopped his car across the street and walked over to us. He too wanted a lemonade. It seemed as if he was from the neighborhood since he was greeting people. When he spoke there was something different to the way he pronounced sentences. Not a dialect, but more a pronunciation, which made us curious of why he sounded different.
Since we had already decided to close, he was our last customer for the day.

When we left Larimer, we drove past a demolition site we had discovered earlier.

A backhoe was sitting on a pile of rubble where 132 Mayflower Street used to be.

(google street view image)

Now, just a couple of hours later, all what was left was a vacant lot with the backhoe sitting like a fat and full animal on flat ground.

While we were taking photos of the newly created vacant lot, two neighbors came out and started taking: “Hi Donald did you just built a new parking spot for your car?” – Since it sounded like Donald (or Ronald) could be approached with all kinds of questions, we asked him what he knew about the demolitions. He told us that he didn’t know much, but that the city seemed to have decided to demolish the better houses and leaves the ones standing that are in disrepair and bad shape. Looking at the house right opposite of the newly vacant lot, we could see a house where the awning was ripped down and the windows were boarded up. It seemed like the building would collapse any minute by itself. We asked Donald if he new when and where the demolitions took place. He told us that crews come into Larimer to do the demolitions, but he didn’t know when and where, but if we would leave him our phone number he would ask the guys when they return and give us a call. We wrote our phone number on a piece of paper and gave it to him.

The conversation with Donald repeated some things we had heard about before, like not knowing which house will be next. but it also reminded us of something we had read about the feelings of former residents who had witnessed the demolition of their homes. We can say that watching a house being demolished is a great spectacle, how it goes from a protecting structure to an empty lot. It is a mesmerizing transformation, but after seeing the second lot covered with straw it leaves a strange residue. The lots start to look like voids and can become eerie.

Here is an interesting article about this topic.