Feb. 02, 2002 - 18:49 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Not Forgotten

Before I started to school a nice brick house was built next door to us. Momma wouldn't let me hang around over there but I do remember the team of horses and the implement they drug to dig the cellar. Now, that was exciting to this kid. A team of, huge horses in that neighborhood setting seemed gigantic.

I watched the hod carriers taking brick and mortar to the bricklayers. Man I don't see any brick houses going up anymore. Some of the newer ones are plywood cracker boxes with maybe a facing of brick. Heck the noise barrier built of brick around some of those developments is sturdier than the houses.

That was before power tools, even table saws and band saws were mostly at the lumber yards and cabinet making shops. The sound of sawing drove me bananas, I just knew I needed to be over there. Occasionally a carpenter would be doing some work outside, usually something that would be unwieldy inside. I loved to watch the curls of pine come from the plane.

From the Get Go it seems that I was of the boy type who was fascinated with construction. A few years older I would peer through the holes in the board fences which came up later where the big stuff was being built to watch construction going on.

The first residents of the house were a newly married young couple -- I realize now they were young -- but at pre-school age anybody above junior high was old, old, old. I went to paradise as they made me welcome over there and Mother approved of me going over to visit. They treated me so kindly, talked to me and better yet, would listen to what I said. There would be cookies and milk or ice cream and hot chocolate and once in a while a piece of hard candy.

They were there I guess just a few short months and then the house was sold to two sisters Bernice and Edna. Now to me they were ancient women. Probably the youngest one was in her early thirties and the other a few years older. Unmarried but I doubt that was because they wished to be.

Mom stayed at home until I started school and they became friends. I saw what real neighbors could be, they were friendly and outgoing but not pushy or nosy. It was only later in life that I found that there weren't too many neighbors as nice as they.

On Saturdays a while after lunch we would be invited over for coffee and cake for Mom and Dad, cookies and milk for me.

I loved those two ladies. The youngest worked downtown as a sales clerk at A. T. Lewis, a department store and later to another store, The May Company I think.

Bernice and Edna accorded me the dignity of being a thinking human being and would converse with me on my level and about things of interest to me (I now realize how kind and patient they were).

Bernice stayed home and kept house and after I was allowed to be a Latch Key Kid I would run errands for Bernice to the store or drugstore, and occasionally answer the call for a guy who was strong to help on something heavy. I'll bet they did that to build some self-esteem for me.

In my mind they seemed to be my ideal of non-supervisory aunts, guess in a way they were. I know a few lessons in civil behavior were given to me, and even that young were appreciated. They didn't gossip or go in for neighborhood feuds never saw them jealous.

I saw plenty of examples of the other kind of neighbors. The woman across the street was always in a feud of some kind or another and was a back fence gossiper. The neighbors on the other side of us were the snooty, better than thou type of people who would once in a while volunteer a hello and quickly pass on by. Bernice and Edna were the shining examples of how neighbors should act toward the world.

They are dead these many years as they were I think older than my Dad and he died at age 80 in 1978. But the Angels of the neighborhood live in my memory, gone but Not Forgotten . . . . . . . .

Blog