In his amazing poem “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost wrote “Good fences make good neighbors.” The whole poem is about how the narrator and his neighbor walk along the length of their adjoining properties, fixing the wall between them as they go along. The narrator wonders why the wall is necessary and even sees his neighbor as “an old-stone savage armed” as the neighbor brings new rocks to support the wall. It is a delightful poem and captures all the nuances of that most odd and sometimes difficult of relationships – being neighbors.
We don’t get to choose neighbors the way we do friends or spouses. They are more or less inherited when we move in or when they move in, sort of like siblings and cousins from Poughkeepsie that you are happy never come down to the city. Still, being a good neighbor or being neighborly all connote a pleasant and rather collegial existence. This calls to mind the great movie Good Neighbor Sam starring Jack Lemmon who plays Sam, a neighbor who goes above and beyond expectations to help out the person next door with hilarious results.
I am thinking about this now as my neighbor Carl has all the boxes out on the front lawn and the moving truck in front of his house. I don’t recall how many years Carl has been here, but I do remember his son being in Kindergarten (I believe) when they moved in, and I think Jack just finished 8th grade now, so the years have gone by for sure.
Early this morning we spoke briefly, and Carl revealed that he has been reading my stuff and plans to continue doing so. I was sort of surprised that he even knew I wrote anything, and then I felt great joy in that he would even have interest in my work. After we said goodbye and I went inside, I felt motivated to write about Carl and his time spent as my neighbor.
Carl has certainly been a good neighbor in many ways. He has always been friendly, outgoing, willing to assist with his snowplow during a blizzard or helping to put up a tent for the annual block party. Carl is a very social person and has friends times ten, which is wonderful because people are drawn to his gregarious personality. His wife and he had many parties, but never anything that ever caused a disturbance. They are well liked and will be greatly missed.
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