Know Thy Neighbor
Any of you unfortunate enough to know me probably understand that I’m not the kind of hombre who wanted neighbors. Thomas Jefferson famously said people should live far enough apart that they can’t hear their dogs’ barking. Times change, I understand that, but in these modern times, I’d like to think we would live separate enough not to hear each other’s lawnmowers, chainsaws, weedeaters and teenagers’ boomboxes. So imagine my distress when, two years after moving to the end of this island at the end of the continent, the trees across from me were clearcut and a 52 lot development was slated for my neighborhood. I immediately went looking for a new home, up river by the Sauk and Skagit convergence, over on the peninsula, out by the coast, somewhere I could hide out.
Needless to say I never left the South End. The development got scaled down to 26 lots and for the past 3 decades, about one house a year was built. My own included…. This past year the last house was finished and the clamor and clang of construction ended, the quietude enfolding us like a benediction. Amen.
Today we were over at the annual picnic our neighbors put on for themselves and those of us across the road. The mizzus and me are the only non-members who attend, but every year we meet the folks who moved in the past year, shoot the breeze, carry in a potluck dish, eat potato salad and hamburgers, reminisce and get reacquainted. Slowly but surely over the years we’ve made our peace with a more crowded neighborhood than we’d maybe wished for. And slowly but surely the neighbors are no longer folks older than us but quite a few are younger. I can see where this is going. Through bifocals clear as day.
I haven’t always been on the best of terms with these newcomers of ours, I’ll admit that. Probably their fault, I figure. And in the old days they didn’t get along with each other. Not my fault, definitely. But as we all sat around the picnic tables at the cul-de-sac’s only shade under the big leaf maple on a hot summer day, I felt at home with all these folks, all these neighbors of ours, some new, some old, and I count myself lucky, this crusty curmudgeon, for the friends we’ve made over there and the friends we’ll make in the coming years. We crab together, we talk across the fence, we go to birthday parties and anniversaries, all that socializing you might expect when you move to the country and not the suburbs. If you live near your neighbors, close enough, say, to hear their beagle bellowing, think about that picnic once a year if you don’t have one already. Invite the neighbors and if they don’t come like some of ours don’t, it’s their tough luck. Chances are, up close and personal, you’ll find you have plenty in common. And don’t let the potato salad sit out too long….
Hits: 42