What do you call the area between the sidewalk and the street? The place where trees are sometimes planted and trash is placed on trash pickup day for the garbage men to collect. Verge? Easement? Berm?
Not if you were raised in or very near Elgin, Illinois. We call it a treebank.
One day Julia, my English roommate, asked if she could help out at the apartment while I was at work. I told her she could put the garbage in the trash can and take the trash can to the treebank for the garbage men to take the next morning.
I got home and the garbage was not in a trash can on the treebank because she had no idea what a trash can or treebank were. We had a laugh when she told me she’d envisioned a bank where you deposited trees instead of money.
Note: I wrote the first two paragraphs of this post months ago but it never fit in to a category until now.
Cedar Waxwing's 365 