By Ben Greenman
from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled
The prohibition of children standing on porches and yelling at the top of their lungs to children on other porches comes into force tomorrow; and inquiries made throughout the neighborhood, as to how youngsters propose to overcome the difficulty, found that the new injunction is being handled in a spirit of resignation, and that no attempt is being made to organize a less clamorous system of communication. Roughly ten years ago, an enterprising group of fourth-graders on Panel Street devised a plan that used flags, lights, and hand signals, in a kind of modified semaphore, but it proved too abstruse, and was gone within the week. In the case of the block between Felt Street and Chart Street, however, there are backyards with fences, so that juvenile residents can stand and speak over the pickets. And nearly all of the houses have telephones. “The real cause of all this difficulty,” said one boy, eleven, “is that we like to yell. There it is—it’s just that simple.”
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