Yesterday, I drove down a long alley just off Broadway Street in Helena. I've always found alleys fascinating. As a kid growing up in East Helena, cutting through them was often my first option as I traveled across town.
Alleys
offered the raw and ragged side of life. There you found overflowing and wholly
abused garbage cans, old cars with their entrails hanging out, skittish cats,
scraps of wood, and all manner of untended spaces where tall weeds could grow.
But
treasure might also be found: recyclable bottles, yellow rose bushes overtaking
leaning sheds, twisty metal stuff I liked, exotic beer cans for my growing
collection, mirrors, and discarded junk I could use or take apart just for fun.
The
jungly, narrow alley off Broadway did not disappoint. I negotiated past yellow
roses in full bloom, stacks of weathered lumber, a strange bench seat made of
wooden slats, leafy places where city deer bed down, one disemboweled truck,
and a scattering of fly-away birds.
I'm
sharing a photograph of the alley so you might enjoy it along with me. Every
alley keeps a few treasures and secrets for those willing to take the long way
through town.
—Mitchell
Hegman
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