Most of the other people on the block, concerned with appearances, concentrated their gardening energies on the front lawns, to impress the neighbors. But Dad didn’t care much about the front yard, where we never spent any time. He worked harder on the backyard lawn, which our family could enjoy in privacy. And so when we wanted to run around under the sprinkler, which created mudholes in the grass, we did it in front, where it didn’t matter because only the neighbors could see it. We did have a sort of playground in the backyard, a paved area where there had once been a garage. On the left was a great mound of sand, where we made miniature cities and used the hose to create lakes and rivers. The neighborhood cats and dogs loved the sand, too, but for a different reason. Once Dad’s boss and his wife came to dinner, and the wife, a sweet elderly lady, said gushingly to Vicky and me, “Oh, what a lovely sand pile you two children have to play in!” “That’s not a sand pile,”
