It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

I was thinking about all the characters I’ve known, neighbors and strangers, from the dark ages to the present. A grand cast, from oblivious to compassionate to gossipy and back again. Mr. Louprette, the childless vacuum cleaner salesman who always had candy in his trunk for us all neighborhood kids, Mr. Allen, the old man who drove through the back of his garage into the brook, then fast forward to my first house as a newlywed and the lady across the street who wore a fresh piece of scotch tape on her forehead every day, the chaotic family who was always yelling at their dog. “Fonda, get over here!” and then getting annoyed at poor beat-up Fonda. “In and out, in and out.” No wonder Fonda was confused, but perhaps not as confused as I was - a young bride with a new baby in a new place in a new life. I had graduated a year early from college, leaving all my classmates to rabble-rouse in their senior year, so I could start the script my older sisters had written: marriage, babies etc. etc. I didn’t know what postpartum depression was. I just knew I felt sad and lonely. My mother and father came to visit; my mother, to deliver the turkey she brought when any of us had a baby, my father, along for the ride. He told us all how he had peed in the bathroom sink because there was a cloth diaper soaking in the toilet. He thought that was hilarious. They stayed for an hour or so. They meant well. I wept after they left.

We moved along to a different town, a different neighborhood. The frenchman next door watered the trees that grew on his sidewalk (I didn’t know trees needed water), the Austrian lady who made dark German bread and liked to fish (read about Gretl in a previous episode). We fixed up our house and sold it for a profit larger than my husband’s teaching salary. That set us on a path of rehabbing and selling houses along with growing our family. Nicer house, dutch colonial on a dead end street, the neighborhood kid jumped off our porch roof to see if he could fly like Superman. You might wonder why he was on the porch roof. I wondered the same thing. Kids, running around, swinging on the swings, peeing in the woods, playing with matches. We bought a wood stove for the kitchen. I was so excited, I strapped the baby to a sled and went out into the woods to gather fuel for the fire. We also put paper and cardboard boxes in there. What fun! When we lit the chimney on fire, the fireman lumbered in, clanking all his gear and grumbled, ‘It’s not a trash burner, you know.’

Next stop was a big Victorian on the inner harbor, which cost a fortune then - about the price of a Tesla these days. The new neighbor lady cozied up to me and then tried to take part of our yard by eminent domain. She called me a dumb Mick when I grabbed her by the wrists, but that’s a story for another day, a story I may never tell. Although I will tell you that she kidnapped another neighbor’s dog and ditched it in New Hampshire, as pay-back for some other perceived land-grab infraction. Everybody in town had stories about that neighbor. Then there was Mister Moody who liked to sit on his stoop wearing fancy old lady hats. Good old Mister Moody. None of us knew what to think of him, was he nice or angry? We couldn’t decide until he hollered across the inner harbor to us, loud and in his best carrying soprano voice, “Yoooooo-hoooooo!

The rehabbing business was lots of fun and very exciting until it all crashed, taking us along with it. They say adversity and suffering makes you stronger. They’re right. Tough going through it, but I wouldn’t change a word of the script.

I moved along to a city neighborhood, where I wrote songs and plays and had a much larger cast of neighborhood characters, some real, some invented; the lady who clicked down the street with her pocketbook and her heels, talking to herself, the piano teacher, the man who loved empties.

For a period, I would shuffle next door with a cup of coffee to my neighbor Jane’s at 6AM, to do ‘automatic writing’, where you set the timer and write, no prompts, no specific topic, just on your mark, get set, go. No time to double think. We would then read our pieces to each other and I would shuffle back home to write a musical or a fairy tale.

The next chapter was back to the country, where my new husband and I would sit on the front porch, watch the sun and the moon over the river, and name every character who walked by. There was ‘stick man’, ‘goat Brian’ and ‘tree Brian’, and ‘Sandy and Sandy’ - a couple whose names were actually Sandy and Jerry but we could never remember who was who.

And now we live in a little city by the sea. We sit on the side porch and invent the back stories of every passerby.

We are all walking story books.

I end with a story about Fiona. Any similarity to real events is purely coincidental.

Before Cordless Telephones by Kate Sullivan

published by FunnyPearlsUK.

No, Fiona, I’ll get it! Look in the dirty laundry…Hello?…William, that poor dog is not a pony!…  Judy! Hello, I can’t believe it’s you…Aidan, is the back door open?  I can feel a breeze…Judy, it’s been so long. How are you?…The back door, Aidan, and could you put all these LEGOs away please? Someone’s going to kill themselves…Sorry, Judy, you were saying something about your brother? OMG, remember when we all skipped school to drive to Canada? It’s so good to hear from you, Judy…Fiona, where’s the baby? When Star Blazers is over, it’s time to turn off  the tv and go outside…Are you crying, Judy? What’s wrong? He died? Oh dear!  What happened? Kidney?…Thank you, Fiona. Now could you please put some clothes on the baby?… Sorry Judy, this phone cord is too short. But didn’t your brother have two kidneys? …Melvin! Where are you? Could you check the oven? I think I left the broiler on. That leash is too tight, William…So, what happened to the other kidney, Judy? …Aiden, where’s dad? I need him to check if I left the back burner lit on the stove…He couldn’t find a donor? Jeez, Judy, that is so sad. … Ouch, that hurt! Your LEGOs, Aiden, pick them up!… Oh Judy, I’m so, so sorry… William, the doorbell is ringing. Go and see who it is… Will there be a funeral?… Ah, Mr.Wenniger, my favorite neighbor! What can I do for you? You see smoke?… Scatter them in the ocean? I love that.  Judy, hold on.  Someone’s at the door. Mr. Wenniger! What’s up? Could you help the baby with her shirt? Smoke? What smoke?…Judy, what time ? I’ll be there. What time? Could you speak up? I can’t hear you over the sirens…

And by the way, my four swinging, pee-ing, match-lighting, brilliant children are all off creating their own lives, meeting their own cast of characters.