Sometimes I just don't know what to write about.

No really. It's not like I've lost my fierce opinions or way with words, but occasionally, a topic sentence would be helpful. You know, like the ones you'd get in sixth grade.

Apparently, I'd prepared for days like these by purchasing "Idea Catcher: An Inspiring Journal for Writers." Only I had forgotten it was on my book shelf. Full disclosure: I am a Virgo. So while I'm not prepared to go all crazy filling up the blank pages with my slanted chicken scratch, I have decided to occasionally choose a random prompt as a blog post.

Creative types. You should write along. There will be no grading.

So here goes.

The prompt:

While sitting at his desk unable to write, E.L. Doctorow began looking around the room and wondering about the original owners of his large Victorian home. His imaginings took him back to the turn of the century and led him to begin his best selling novel "Ragtime," which is set in that era.

My take:

Yeah. I know my house is some sort of special. It was built on the former site of the Messer Street Grounds, the home field of the minor league Providence Grays baseball team.

Take that new construction.

The park, which opened to incredible fanfare on May 1, 1878, was torn down only eleven years later, due to poor attendance. Once demoed, the vacant land was sold in subdivided plots, on which our home was erected, in 1890, literally where the grandstand once stood.

No, I have not heard any cheering.

Yet.

I'd like to think the people who initially built our awesome stone foundation and simple clapboard house were independent thinkers. That they were excited by the possibilities of settling in a neighborhood that was only just beginning to flourish around them. That they were energized by taking a risk in calling this untested area home. That they knew, deep in their souls, that their outside-the-box thinking would be rewarded. In big ways and small. Every single day.

Fast forward a hundred and twenty-two years and really, not much has changed.