It’s not our house…yet

A little girl rides her bike up my street, streamers flapping from the handlebars, a cheerful basket fastened up front. As I get out of my car and start up the steps of the house, she waves and calls out "Hi, Mr. Cooley!" I pause on the steps and wave back as she continues down the block. She'll make two or three more circles of the wide, grassy parkway that seperates the north and south sides of our street and then, I imagine, go home for supper.

This happens at least once a week, and has gone on for much of the summer.

My name, incidentally, is not Cooley, but she thinks it is. Ours is a neighborhood where most of the houses are at least a century old and are referred to by the names of their original owners or the most recent residents of long standing. The Parks House. The Chouteau House, across the street. We have lived here only eight years, so ours is still The Cooley House. We won't get naming rights for another decade, at the outside.

The little girl has probably heard her parents or grandparents describe my home as The Cooley House, pointing it out on walks on sultry summer evenings before the sun slips leisurely behind the Arch and the city air begins to cool. With perfect logic, she assumes that because I live in The Cooley House, I must be Mr. Cooley.

I do not know her name, but tonight, as the little girl excitedly pedals away, I wave and call to her back, "Hi, Sarah! Be careful now!"

She will be Sarah because the girl on the bike in my neighborhood when I was growing up was Sarah. She won't get to be Britney or Courteney or Tiffany for another decade, at the outside.

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