A special delivery
Posted: November 14, 2010 Filed under: neighbors, Thank you 1 Comment »Our wonderful neighbors just delivered an ice cream cake to our door.
The reason? They think we do nice things for them.
No. More like they do nice things for us and we’re trying to keep up by doing nice things for them.
Either way, it’s great having nice neighbors as great as ours.
Like a good neighbor….they’re always there.
They’re making noise
Posted: July 15, 2010 Filed under: complaints, neighbors Leave a comment »“They’re making noise and we can’t sleep!”
So went the complaints to the police.
Our neighborhood was plagued by a teenage neighbor and his friends who had a garage band and a skateboard ramp. The neighbor kid would be on the ramp all hours of the day and night (made me wonder if the kid ever ate). We started filing complaints with the police. They would come and tell the kid to quiet down. He didn’t listen. Our neighborhood was getting very frustrated as we had tried everything we could think of to get him to be quiet.
One one occasion, a neighbor called the police again and this time the deputy came out to speak with her. The deputy listened to her complaint then went over to the offending party and listened to their side. I was at my neighbor’s house at the time, partly because I wanted to hear what the deputy’s advice would be. He came back over to my neighbor’s house and told us some of what was said.
The deputy basically said they have a right to make some noise but not after certain hours and they were told to have some consideration for their neighbors.
We wanted the brat to stop completely.
We still complained.
It was more the ramp that annoyed us, especially at three in the a.m. While we weren’t exactly happy that there wouldn’t be any more noise from the ramp, we were glad the offending neighbors got a talking to from the police.
Just before the deputy left, he chatted with us, telling us how the weekend had been going for the police. There had been two car accidents involving teenagers the night before, just fifteen minutes apart. Both teenagers had been about sixteen years old. There were fatalities with alcohol being a factor. The deputy pointed out that at least the offending neighbor’s parents knew where the kid was. We agreed. We were sad that there had been a loss of life and at such an early age.
The deputy said the department was having a hard time handling it. He seemed very quiet as he told us about the events. As a matter of fact, he seemed quite somber throughout the whole time he was there.
A day or so later we read about the two fatalities. One of the teens who died had been burned in one of the two accidents.
Thinking back to what the deputy had said, about how at least the parents knew where their kid was, hit home. At least this neighbor kid was in the care of his parents. They knew what he was doing….making noise. There are two teenagers, whose parents didn’t know where their children were, who will be silent forever.
I stopped complaining about the kid. He took up skateboarding again. He makes noise. It may not be a sweet sound to me but I bet it is to his parents.
The neighbor kid continued to play with his garage band. They even raised money to send to a charity.
Like a good neighbor…
Posted: February 2, 2010 Filed under: neighbors Leave a comment »The other day, my daughter got stuck in a snowbank in our driveway. She went to the neighbors to get some help. They dropped what they were doing and gladly came out to help us. It was very cold out and I’m sure there was a wind-chill below zero. It made me think about what good neighbors we have. We lived here for about 10 years and learned very quickly that they are dependable, good-hearted people.
We borrow things from each other and even bake goodies and take them over every now and then. They don’t hesitate to ask if we will do an errand for them or look after their house and animals when they are away on vacation. We likewise don’t hesitate to give them a key to our house and ask them to bring in the mail.
We were also fortunate enough to have good neighbors where we lived before too. We could borrow things from them and they would help us out when it came time to rake leaves or shovel snow. Our kids were little then and our neighbors were elderly which made a perfect match. We had several sets of grandpas and grandmas and they had no shortage of dollar bills and candy.
They watched our children grow up and were very sad to see them leave the neighborhood. We went back for visits and kept in touch with them. But, sadly, most of them have passed on now. But our children have many memories and examples of what it means to be a good neighbor.
When our children leave home, they will hopefully be in a neighborhood where they can rely on their neighbors and carry on the tradition of being a good neighbor themselves.
