When I was a kid my friend’s Mom would hand us each a big paper bag of peapods to shell, we’d sit on his front step and pop round green peas into a big metal bowl and pass a summer afternoon, talking and joking about stuff 8 year old kids would talk and joke about in those days. I loved my street and my friend and his Mom and Dad and his two older brothers too. I’d say I was lucky, wasn’t I.