Neighbors: Now and Then

Author's Note: A version of this was printed in the Atlanta AJC. This, however, is the original story as intended.

Growing up in the Midwest in a solid brick house built square and strong, its front adorned by cream-colored shutters and a black iron rail coming down from the concrete stoop, I felt like my roots were planted deep in the dark, rich soil. I knew the folks all the way up the hill to the corner and down the other side again. I knew all their kids and their pets’ names, who owned the battered blue Schwinn, and who had the shiny red Huffy. I knew their parents and the sound of their cars as they came down the blacktop road in the evenings, flying into their driveways with a whoop and a bang, or turning cautiously into the narrow driveway into the safety of the attached, one-car garage. I knew which yards I could cut through on the way to school and which ones were owned by grouchy old folks who would yell at us. They were the same ones who topped our list on Halloween for soaped windows or egged driveways.

I called all the adults by “Mr.” or “Mrs.” or “Ma’am,” if I wasn’t sure of a woman’s marital status. We had one neighbor who allowed us to call her “Mrs. G” because her last name was long and had too few vowels and too many consonants..

Manners were enforced not just by our parents, but also by the whole neighborhood. So it was no surprise when Mrs. Rex hollered out from behind the rosebushes she was pruning, “Susie Mayer, don’t you dare use that language in THIS neighborhood.” I hung my head in shame for telling my bossy big brother to “Shut up!” We tried to save our hooligan behavior for places and times when we wouldn't be spotted by neighbors, but they seemed to be everywhere.

Joanie, my best friend from up the hill, and I thought no one would know when we sneaked down to the local ice cream store for a sundae one hot Sunday afternoon. Joanie’s parents were stricter than mine. I figured it was because they were Catholic and had so many more sins in their religion. We stopped at the water spigot out back when we got home to wash away any leftover hot fudge. But we’d missed old lady Garber coming in to buy a pint of hand-packed cherry vanilla. She didn’t miss us, though, and felt it her “duty” to inform Joanie’s parents, who grounded her for two whole weeks. “We’re sure you will do the right thing and tell your parents yourself, Susie,” they said as they sent me home. Sure, I nodded, knowing I wouldn’t be that stupid, but wanting them to think my virtue was still in place.

On our street, Protestants were in the minority. Jewish families had the street tacked down on both ends and in the middle. Spaced out every other house were the Catholic families and, in between, like afterthoughts, were us “others.” We were the kids that parents warned their kids about –the ones who played in the woods when other kids couldn't for fear of strangers, snakes, or poison ivy. I would take off through the woods behind Woodland Grade School with all the neighborhood boys – Pat, Randy, Mickey, and Derek – and we’d swing into the creek from willowy branches. We’d catch garden snakes and take them home to scare the “girlie girls.” I was treated like one of the boys until I started wearing a training bra and batting my eyes.

Saturdays were a special treat when we would earn a whole dollar for our weekly chores, and set off for the movies. A dollar would buy a ticket, popcorn, and coke, and some Good and Plenty or Jujubes. One mom would drop off as many of us as could fit in her Chevy Belair and we’d make our way to the balcony in the Ohio or Madison theaters – former opera houses, with grandly ornate boxes on the sides and murals painted on the dome-like ceilings. Great chandeliers sparkled dully in the darkened room. Visits to the “lounge” were a must, just to glide down the elegant staircases, recline on the velvet chaises in the lounge and gawk at the statues still in wall niches. Here we pretended to be royalty, or at least grown-up. These Saturday matinees were for education as well as entertainment. There was a newsreel, short cartoons, and then the main feature. We witnessed the premier of classics like Cyclops, The Ten Commandments, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. We believed in those days – in all the plagues, Moses parting the water, and the burning bush that didn’t turn to ashes. We returned home vowing to behave after films like these, and we checked under our beds more often before going to sleep.

Sometimes, instead of going to the movies, I got to help at my dad’s business. Mayer Drug Store, the sign said, before “drugs” would come to mean illegal substances. All five of my siblings and I were allowed to help from time to time. As the youngest, my job was to dish nickel cones of Sealtest vanilla or chocolate ice cream. The building was ancient even then in the 50’s, with well-worn wooden floors and a pounded tin ceiling. Huge fans turned lazily in the shimmery heat of summer and coats stayed wrapped tight in the winter. A large wooden Indian stood sentry by the front door. Huge barrels held delicious treats including rock candy and horehound drops which were measured with a scoop into little brown bags and weighed by the pound. My favorite job was to get on the 12-foot high library ladder and run a feather duster gently over the brown and amber glass bottles of mysterious fluids and pills. An authentic mortar and pistil stood at the ready on the counter where my father counted out capsules or mixed solutions. It was all very magical and intriguing. The basement had stone walls, a dirt floor, and many tiny little beady eyes watching as we crept down the stairs, grabbed a gallon or two of ice cream from the huge freezer, and scurried back up to safety. The top floor was marvelous, with cavernous rooms that echoed with our laughter and a heavy roll top desk that must have been half century old. My dad took his work seriously, and we all comported ourselves a little better in his presence. We avoided trouble when working with Dad.

However, back at home, we did get in trouble sometimes, but it was roll-off-your back kind of trouble. Trouble in the 50's and 60's was ponytail-pulling, having a love note read aloud in class, throwing a small stone at the bus as it went by and breaking the window by accident. My brothers were the big-time offenders: trying a cigarette behind the garage, breaking windows on an abandoned greenhouse, and skipping Sunday school on a rainy day when Dad was working. There was an unofficial, but very present, neighborhood watch on our street, consisting of stay-at-home moms and live-in grandmothers who kept an eagle eye on all the local comings and goings.

Of course, our neighbors did more than turn us in like Keystone Cops with a quota. In freezing weather, when we had snow to the tops of our boots and ice crusted on our mittens, a kind neighbor would offer us a lift home from school, never mind the clumps of snow left on the floorboards. On hot summer days, men in their spiffy Studebakers and Ford Fairlane 500’s would stop on their way home to buy a cup of our lukewarm, sugary Kool-Aid at five cents a cup. When my mom was sick, a neighbor would attend PTA with her son and me and make all the appropriate noises over my papers. . Someone would give us a jump-start when cold weather drained our battery. My brothers and I shoveled snow off Mrs. Boland’s driveway after her husband was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Hot soup and homemade bread traveled back and forth between those homes like good gossip at a quilting party.

I learned some basic life lessons in that place. I learned to care for others and bring comfort if I could, when six-year-old Booger was run down by a bike and broke her leg. I was old enough to read to her, and bring my dolls to her house to play. I learned tolerance for other religious and ethnic backgrounds as I attended mass with Joanie and ate Matzo at the Fliegel’s. I learned that yes, I AM my brother’s keeper, but to watch the fine line between caring and prying. I learned that it is okay to grieve with friends, when a mother died of cancer, when another died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, when a child’s puppy was hit by a car. I learned to rejoice when someone landed a new job, bought a car, made the cheerleading squad, or was healed of a serious illness. Neighbors were a cross between friends, family, police, preachers, and a good country doctor. We nurtured, scolded, shared, grumbled, laughed, and cried. We uplifted, held on, let go and moved on.

More than miles separate me now from Shepard Road and the folks that lived there. I visited not long ago, driving slowly up and down the street by myself, stopping to let the memories come, naming the friends that had turned the brick and wood houses into homes. I saw Pat, Randy, Cheryl, Booger, Wes and Frank and me running around playing Cops and Robbers. I smelled the pungent odor of new-mown grass as Joanie and I played dolls under the big maple or walked up the street pulling a wagon full of fresh tomatoes and peppers from our garden to sell. I could see Mrs. Rex hanging sheets to whip in the wind and Mrs. Warndorf crossing the street with a steaming casserole for Mr. Heston when his wife was hospitalized. I found myself wishing I could live in a community like that again, but then realized I do.

A community doesn’t have to be defined by three or four streets with common corners. A neighbor now is not just the people who live in the houses on my street, but the wider circle of acquaintances who care for me and whom I care about. For example, Christie, the pharmacist on the corner who knows my name, to Lynda at the deli counter who is from Liberia and shares pictures of her new baby with me, to Andy at the garage who services my car with the attitude of wanting to keep me safe. A group of co-workers are my neighbors also. We laugh together, cry together, and share our joy and our concerns. We celebrate birthdays, bring a good book to share, ask after one another’s family. These neighbors did not come with the deed to our home, but are “chosen neighbors.”

In addition, I’m part of a church filled with people who share the values I learned as a child. My “neighbors” at church care for each other, bring soup to the sick, cut grass for the disabled, sit in silent companionship with the grieving. These, then, are my neighbors: the people who live near my home, those that live and work in my community, my co-workers, and my fellow church members. Neighborhoods have not died, they have just changed their faces.