Being Neighborly

Now, you need to know that my house once belonged to my grandparents, and my elderly neighbors moved in shortly after my grandparents did in 1945. My mom grew up with their daughters and I have know the family my entire life.

Just before we left for camp, the elderly gentleman next door passed away. He passed on Thursday. His wake was Friday and he was burried on Saturday. His wife and daughters were surrounded by friends and family for those days, but it's never long before everyone else goes back to the normal life, while his wife is left alone with her grief and, thankfully, her daughters. Sunday, when everyone else had gone, I though it would be a good day to drop by with a nice big tray of Baked Ziti. It was met with a chorus of "you shouldn't have" and "you didn't need to". One of the daughters then said, "You know what? I'm glad you did". frankly, so am I.

I should have and I did need to. It made me feel better to help them. The widow is to weak to be cooking, even in the best of circumstances. I do'nt know about anyone else, but I'm barely interested in eating after losing a loved one, nevermind cooking. BUT if the food is there....

Sometimes, neighbors are still neighbors. We live in a community and we need to share our gifts and reach out to help one another. Perhaps we all need to start watching Mr. Rogers again...

Catching Flies

All of the "bad" teenagers in the neighborhood hang out at the house next to mine. They rode their bikes/boards in the middle of the road. They tossed empty beer cans, cigarette butts and other assorted nastiness into our yard. They played their music too loud too late and woke up my kids.

Notice my use of the past tense? No, they didn't move and sadly, the kid next door has not gotten more selective about his friends. What changed? They found out that we like Iron Maiden. Todd came home one night and he was blaring Maiden on the SUV's sound system. The "kids" next door were amazed the we old farts had ever heard of them (I wonder if they realize that the band is in their 50's?). Well, once they found out that Todd and I were going to see them... we became the "cool" neighbors.

No more crap in our yard. No more loud music at night. They even look out for my kids and will not let ANYONE pick on them. They are even showing Andy & Ryan how to skateboard (I was not thrilled about this at first, but then Todd brought his board home from his parents... now THAT scared me!). They are nice to us, considerate of our kids and even help us out if/when they can. It is amazing what you can do when you find a little common ground.