ORANGE — Just yonder up Dexter Street, the town elementary school’s campus is quiet — with just a bit of summer vacation left. But recently, the other end of this pleasant little dead-end street became a playground for neighborhood grownups who claimed it for a rare block party.
Members of four households gathered for a potluck meal and lively storytelling about Dexter Street history, amusing personal anecdotes of relevance and related town affairs. Come to find out, for example, that on a particular third day of school in the 1950s, Dexter Park School officials faced with baby boomer overcrowding in the form of three children per desk resorted to sending the youngest first-graders back home to postpone their schooling for a year.
The hot and cold buffet included a celebratory cake, trimmed in blades of green frosting to simulate lawn turf and bearing the message: “Bless Our ’Hood.”
Some three decades had flown by since Dexter Street’s last block party, recalled two of the hostesses in attendance. And, though raindrops forced the party indoors, the weather did not dampen spirits. Merrymakers made a facetious vow to do it again — in 30 years.