Larkspur had several stairway streets, all of them with four-letter names. At the moment, only Post, Opal and Onyx come to mind. Onyx was a virtual twin of Arch St., with concrete steps and the same kind of iron railing. Unlike Arch, however, the city no longer maintained it, so its unswept, somewhat overgrown condition made it seem to me like a ghostly or alternate-reality version of Our Street.

For some reason, Mother insisted on saying "it's what they call an 'unimproved road'" when giving directions to delivery people, which, of course, made our place even harder for them to find.

I assumed permanence, yet was fascinated by change, so when they finally sawed down the big leaning acacia that had always been there, my emotions were distinctly mixed.

The notion of cars driving up Arch Street was so utterly outlandish I naturally had occasional dreams about it. So when it came close to actually happening, I felt it was an event worthy of recording. Click here to see it.