LIFE ON CASWELL AVENUE
That was the street we lived on in Hyde Park, an old part of town where the trees are tall and the soil is deep black clay. A good many old folks lived on our street, along with some college kids. The UT shuttle wandered through Hyde Park every day, offering free rides into the campus.
Our house was a 900-square foot cottage on a corner lot. We didn't have
an air conditioner. But the windows opened and a breeze blew through
the rooms even on the hottest days. I know it wasn’t always summer,
but it’s hard to remember any other season. I picture the Caswell
house in the shade of two big old pecan trees, surrounded by overgrown
shrubs, with Turk’s cap tall and blooming in the still heat of
the afternoon.
The reason it always seemed like summer to me was that I had come from the north, where the summer is short and the nights aren’t hot for more than a couple of weeks. I’d gotten a job teaching at UT right out of graduate school. So I rode the UT shuttle into campus, and often, though it was three miles, I walked home, just for fun. Austin seemed like a small town to me. Sleepy, even. Next
