Where I live is a little area of seven houses with acreage around a designated wetland area. Recently, one neighbor lost his home to the bank. A couple bought the house, which was in very bad repair, and for a ridiculously low price. They have put alot of work into it since buying it - I hear chainsaws and big vehicles over there. They are across the pond, so to speak, so only get glimpses when they leave their driveway but the other day I thought I saw a TRACTOR roll by. Tractors make me giddy. I need to rent one about once a year, and that usually runs me $400 for 4 hours. Ouch.
Driving home with one of my kids, the new neighbor was driving his garbage can to the street with said Kubota. I put my car in park and ran out to meet him. I don't know what he thought, but he seemed cautious and kept telling me about his girlfriend. Obviously, he cannot tell the difference between a woman hitting on him and a woman giddy over the prospect of tractor labor for free, or more accurately the cost of diesel and some baked goods. He mellowed out when he realized I was solely focused on the orange machine he was driving and offered to come over and haul compost around my yard. What! Of course you can be neighborly in such a manner! He was a super nice guy, as all my neighbors have turned out to be. My neighbors: there is Cal, the gatekeeper to our community. Literally, his house is at the main road and he keeps an eye out on the cars traversing our road. There is the skilled carpenter and his family, she has had their house in a magazine for her design skills. There are my retired neighbors who bring me fresh salmon, clams and most recently smoked salmon.
Don and Jan, probably my faves due to proximity. I know them the best, too. Somewhat hardcore christians, not the mellow loving type - there is that undercurrent of fanaticism. Jan told me God gave me the stroke so I would turn toward Him. I didn't have the heart to say that I don't believe in a God that would be so small minded and angry. That being said they are there in a heartbeat. She prayed for my horse Bey when he was trying to colic. I can only think that helped. Two other families live here also, both friendly. I kinda lucked out on all of them. And I get to add to the mix: nice couple with the tractor.
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I guess I'm from the old school, but I have always paid for services or help, even though the people say they don't want to be paid. I guess because nothing was ever given to me. I've always had to work for what I got and have.
Maybe it's my upbringing, but I always feel overly indebted to people who say they don't want anything in return and I give them back more than the job or service was worth.
I tend not to get into my neighbors lives. It just works out better for me that way. Getting to know neighbors a bit too much, most likely, turns out bad.
Oh I hear you, Buffy. We are not walking in each others homes for coffee or dinner, most homes I have not been in nor they in mine. But it is important to me to have a safe community that gives assistance when needed, and keeps an eye out on everything. When someone needs cats watched because a family member is ill and they need to leave town, or someone has a branch down and a neighbor has a chainsaw. I have seen them helping out on each others cars or hauling stuff with their trucks. I think it makes healthier people when they don't isolate themselves.
I'm the opposite of Buffy. Most neighbors here are friends and have always helped each other out. Baked goods are totally acceptable in exchange.
As to "I don't know what he thought, but he seemed cautious and kept telling me about his girlfriend." what is it with some guys :-) that they assume any woman in their vicinity is after them?
Really, how insulting :-) There's this desperate woman about to throw herself at him, apparently :-) And no small number of these guys are in the last man on the planet category.
Over the years, I've had a similar thing happen with some guys' wives, especially coworkers' wives when I was working in a mostly male environment.
And yet other men and women are perfectly normal.
I would really like to know what this springs from.
I guess I should put some examples down of what had happened to me in my lifetime which, I am sure, has been a lot longer than the two of you.
I never ask my neighbors, or anybody else for that matter, for help. I don't make my problems theirs. If I don't have the money to help myself, I don't do it. That's it. End of story. I don't need men to do me favors. I can pay for what I need and want.
When I had to move my very old dinosaur of a microwave out of my small apartment to make room for a new microwave to be delivered, I asked my lady neighbor if her son could help me roll out my old microwave with its cart out to my van and lift the microwave off the cart into my van at a certain time in the morning because I had another man waiting at the recyclable place to lift it out of my van and into their eco trash area.
I didn't ask the son directly so as to not give the mother the idea I was after the son.
Well, after waiting until a half an hour before I knew the recycle guy would have left, I started rolling my microwave out on a crooked sidewalk to my van. This was very difficult for me to handle, but by then, I was angry. Finally, after wrangling the microwave and its cart to my van, they came out of their apartment. The son then lifted the microwave off the cart and into my car. That's all he did. I was, at that point, I was just going to shove the microwave off the cart and having it slam down into the rear end of my inside of my van. At that point, I thought I would damage my car. What I did was give the son $10.00 and made a dozen cupcakes for them. For Christmas I made them a table runner and potholders to match with musical notes (the mother plays the piano.)
Another instance at my ranch my neighbor said he'd come and fix my fencing. I refused. This fence was all around my 2 1/2 acre property and I've spent an arm and a leg twice getting it fixed by some men I had hired, plus materials.
My neighbor refused and said he'd be over in 10 minutes. I still
refused and shouted "NO!" But he came over anyways and fixed my front fencing with his materials for three hours. Of course, I helped. I offered him $300, but he refused. I had him over for dinner, took him out for dinner, took care of his house and cat while he went on vacation many times, made him cookies for his trips, etc., etc., etc.
Another time, when I was young I lived in an apartment complex next to another young, single girl like myself. She ended up to be a taker. I always gave, she always took. I worked, she didn't. She had a trust given to her each month. We were both new in the area, so we gravitated very easily to one another. She was at my door practically every night, expecting me to cook dinner for her, which I did at first,just to show her how I cooked, a good one at that I must admit, and I've been told. She never once cooked, took me out for even an ice cream. But it got to the point she was embarrassing me in front of people saying such stupid things and people then looking at me in a strange way, like, you hang around with this girl? She was kind of a social outcast, I came to find out. She had serious problems in that area.
I have many, many more incidents. I've learned my lessons.
Buffy, We all need different things to make our lives run smoothly. I am an excruciatingly independent person. But when I was taken down by a stroke and tumor -- literally messing with my head and threatening my life -- it was a huge wake-up call. How I interpreted what that means for my future is my own doing, alongside God. This is such an overused term : life is too short. I really don't know how long I have so I might as well mellow out about a whole lot of stuff I used to get wound around the axel. I was always a giver and helper. It worked out that people stepped in when I needed assistance, just a I had for people in distress, whether I knew them or not. If I lived near you I would help you move that microwave. And I remember you saying if you were closer you would have helped me post-stroke. I know you help people when they need it. That is all we are talking of.
Andrea
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