As she cleaned the front yard.

What kind of person throws up on a respectable citizen's front yard and doesn't bother to inform the owners or eve make an attempt in cleaning it, irresponsible youngers, is who it is, so when the owner discovers it the next morning but has somewhere to go to and comes back in the evening she doesn't want to borrow the hose from the neighbor she has to do it the old way bucket after bucket out on the streets which reminds of her of those sweet days when irritating brats like these weren't around but she thinks to herself wasn't I the irritating brat then, ah the crazy things we did, like that one time took a friend's dad's car from Charlestown and drove down to the cape and back without either of them knowing about it now if someone did that those crazy security systems would contact the police in five minutes and those goddamn coppers with their machine guns and tanks would show up in front of the car in no time or maybe even in your parents place which was a crazy concept because the police weren't supposed to be like that they weren't like that in olden times even until twenty years ago they were like this nice little neighborhood watch and sure some parts of the town were rather rough the winterhill gang still terrified the locals you had to pay off not one mafia gang but two and make sure you were in the good books of others too making sure not to get too too close to the Irish and Italian gangs and how all of that sounds like a movie from a faraway place and people from black-and-white photos, people don't believe you when you tell them that but you've been living in the same house for the last thirty years and funnily enough your street hasn't change much, the houses have had slightly nicer yards now and the owners have changed more or less but the immigrants and the students are the same, their nationalities have been changing over the years but the way they come about and work their way hasn't which is an inspiration for her as it was her parents who came to this country, bought the house she lives in when they had saved up enough money after twenty two years and now she wouldn't be able to afford this place in three lifetimes it was crazy yes every place was more desirable but what's the point if immigrants can't live, if poor people can't live it becomes one of those closed socities where you don't see the downtrodden the suffering and you act around like you're the king of the place, no that's not what she wanted to be in and she was in a sense not too sad to get a feeling of the crazier older times when it was lawless and rough and tough, those times gave you character.