Sometimes it’s exquisite to not know a phenomenon. Imagine this; a small piece of land grated flat. It parallels the street as if someone widened that street a little bit for just 50 feet; it’s a place to park two cars end to end. There is no garage, so this is a good idea. The street’s on one side of the parked cars and the land shoots straight up for 25 feet on the other- right angle- straight up! It looks like the sharp cliff edge of a dirt glacier. Sitting on top of the cliff is a small house. The front of the house is a continuation of the dirt glacial wall. The dirt rises straight up and turns into the siding of the house. There’s not even one inch of front yard. The front door opens to a 25 foot drop; a big first step!

There are only two small pieces of yard: one in back and a very narrow strip along one side, and  each yard is surrounded by high fences. Instead of another side- yard, the house slams up against the bare wall of a two story building; they shared that wall.

To address the front door’s sudden drop- dilemma a tall ladder leans against the 25 foot dirt wall to replace stairs, of course it’s positioned exactly below the front door. The ladder seemed to work for the occupants for three years. But, ONE day, as John and I drove by, we saw the ladder was MISSING! For the longest time we wondered, “How did the people get into their house. Maybe, every day, they went through the neighbor’s yards, climbed the high fences, and entered a back door. It was months before a new ladder appeared, and  it was CHAINED AND PAD LOCKED TO the bottom of the front door stoop. What a beautiful solution.

We still wonder: how did the pizza delivery man manage, was it impossible for a teetering old grandma to visit, if you bought your loved one a sizable birthday gift how would you get it up the ladder, wouldn’t be fun to buy a very large couch and have it delivered, and  would your dog look forward to his daily walk?  nancymauerman.com