While I Was Out...

Everyone needs a nosy neighbor.  I have one, and I love it.  Good Neighbor Fred and his wife Sharon live across the street from me and have been in their house-on-a-slab far longer than I've been here in mine.  They are older than I but sure don't look it!  Megan and I used to joke that "Freddie knows all" because there isn't too much that goes on in our neighborhood that he doesn't pick up on.  Over the course of my years here, if I didn't take my Sunday newspaper out of the newspaper box, he'd get after me by saying, "If you aren't going to read that, I'll just cancel my subscription and read yours!"  (I finally canceled my subscription because I never got around to reading the paper.)  If the garbage cans don't get moved off the curb fast enough to suit him, I'll find them on the lawn or up by the house.  Freddie at work! 

But there are advantages to nosy neighbors.  When I still had cats but had to be gone for a weekend, he'd come in and check on them.  (I watch after their cat when they are gone, too...which isn't often.)  Now when I travel up to my daughter's, Fred gets my mail and watches the house.  And when I'm home, he looks for signs of life to make sure I'm still kicking.

And now that I'm thinking about it, there are a whole bunch of things that Neighbor Fred has done for me through the years.  One summer, we filled up the bed of his truck with yard trash--shrubbery that I had cut down--to haul to the yard waste collection place.  He has helped to fill divots in my yard by the curb by adding rocks, as he has them.  Whenever there is a sizeable snowfall, he plows a path up my driveway to the front door without my asking.  This past December, Meg and family, plus my son-in-law's Russian parents, drove to my house after a 9-inch snowfall.  I fully expected that we'd have to park on the street while Denis and Sergey shoveled out the driveway, but when we turned the corner onto Walton Drive, we were very pleasantly surprised to see the entire driveway cleaned off clear down to the pavement.  (That was such a blessing!)  It was Fred who decided that my front door lock wasn't working correctly when I was gone...and fixed it.  I think having a key to my house made for Fred and Sharon was the best $2 investment I ever made!  

When I'm away, I stay in email contact with Fred.  He only writes if there is something wrong.  (I almost dread seeing an email from him in my in-box, for fear the house has burned down or something.)  When I was visiting Meg in California for a couple of weeks in February three years ago, Fred alerted me that my car battery was dead.  He had tried to start it during a particularly cold spell--God bless him.  Having the information was helpful in knowing what I had to do before I even got home.  When visiting Meg in Illinois a couple of years ago, it was Fred who alerted me that the electricity to my house had been shut off because, in all of my travels, I had failed to pay the bill.  (Oops!)  From Illinois, I got the bill paid and the service turned back on.  It was too late to save the stuff in the refrigerator/freezer because Fred hadn't seen the sign hanging on the doorknob for a few days, but I am sure glad I got the word before I walked in the door to a total mess.  Thank you, Fred!

Last summer while I was gone, a bad hailstorm hit the Plainfield area.  Fred wrote that I was lucky to have missed that.  Some of my friends suffered some big losses.  Friend Ryan had major damage to his house plus broken windshields on cars, etc.  It started a spate of new roofs that went up all over the area (except my house, which I think I already wrote about). 

Then, this past week when I was visiting Meg, I got a couple of emails from Fred saying that I shouldn't leave town anymore because bad stuff happens when I'm gone.  It seems that a bank was robbed down by the Marsh grocery store, and the three bad guys got away but were being chased by PPD and the FBI...into my neighborhood.  Gunfire was exchanged, and one of the alleged robbers was shot and killed less than two blocks from my house.  The others ran and ended up in the back yard of the lady right across the street, where they were captured.  Fred sent pictures.  All of the pictures that he sent, plus the ones I saw on news websites, clearly showed police cars and media RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE.  Not sorry I missed all of that! 

The next email from Fred indicated, again, that I was missing all the action.  It seems that a neighbor's truck was on fire and the PFD was putting it out. 

Of course, now that I'm home, things have settled down.  I prefer it that way.  Plainfield isn't exactly the crime center of the universe.  We have more police per capita than most communities of this size because this is, after all, a "Community of Values".  (Wink, wink.)  

While I was out, I had a good and nosy neighbor watching my back.  I wish that for everyone who lives alone!