Neighbors

I love our neighbors.  We are very lucky to have really great neighbors out here.  We have a mix of full timers and cottagers, which is just part of the unique way of life on the lake.  One couple shares baked goods, we give them produce from the garden.  She just gave us zucchini chocolate cake (tasted WAY better than it sounds like it might) in fact.

Anyway, we have great neighbors.  But this isn’t really about the neighbors here.  It’s about neighbors at the Old House.  We were recently talking about one of them, just briefly, and it made me think of how much I miss two in particular.  Both have passed on, sadly.  Lucy and Clarence. 

Lucy was hilarious.  She was born on February 29^th, so she joked with us how she was getting close to her 21^st birthday so she would be able to drink soon (as you may have guessed, Lucy was in her early 80’s).  She lived in a little house down the street and didn’t drive.  Her husband had passed away several years before and her kids didn’t live nearby, so she walked.  EVERYWHERE.  EVERY day.  She loved to talk.  She loved people. She loved gossip.  So if you wanted to know what was going on in the neighborhood, you asked Lucy.  Sadly we didn’t get even close to finishing our renos at the Old House before she was gone-we had promised her we’d give her the grand tour when it was done, since she was always interested in what we were doing around the place.

Clarence grew up in the house next door, never married, never moved out and he hated Lucy.  She talked too much.   He didn’t like women in general actually.  He confided in Mr Eclectic that he thought they were all lazy gossips that didn’t do much.  Except me.  He liked me, he told my hubby, because I did things.  I worked at a regular job, and helped with all the work on the house, AND I didn’t talk too much.  In return, he would leave me pussy willows in the mailbox on Dingus Day (if you don’t know about this fun Polish holiday, search it out on the web.  Fun stuff).  Clarence was quiet.  He was like a ghost.  I can’t count how many times he would walk over to check out what we were doing and scare the bejeebers out of us because we didn’t know he was there.  He wasn’t much of a talker, but he liked hanging around and watching us build stuff.  I’ll have to look, I think I snuck a photo of him one, watching the Terminex guy burn a bee hive out of our tree.  If something was going on that was interesting, Clarence would be there.

There really isn't a point here, except if you have great neighbors, treasure them!!  Well, and try to be one.