This is the second weekend that has been absolutely beautiful in my part of the world and I spent it putting in my fall garden. Yesterday, our new neighbors, who actually aren't new, inquired as to what we were growing. They plan on putting a raised bed garden in next weekend along our shared fence line.
So, how is a "new" neighbor not new? Well, they lived one house north of their present location for two years and moved one house south in May when the former owner decided to move into a condo after his wife died the previous year. The condo he moved into is next door to his deceased wife's first husband. They all remained good friends.
The house that the "new" neighbors moved from was purchased by someone they knew from the New England state they formally lived in. This new to me neighbor is their old friend.
Same thing happened to the house on the corner of our block - the person who built it decided to buy some property on a lake a few miles north where he could retire. He sold it to a Midwest family. They lived their for two years and decided to move to a home not far away with more amenities. They sold the "old" house to a relative.
One of my adults kids bought a home two years ago that's only 4 minutes from me (if I miss the light). The insurance agent we recommended is the brother of someone who I used to eat lunch in high school with and who was a good friend of my husbands. That high school is 1500 miles from where we all currently reside.
My own family flipped houses, too. I have a nice brick bbq grill my husband and son built based on a memory of one of the house flips. My grandparents decided their first home had become too large so they had a smaller house built a few miles away from the original home in Indiana in the early 1960's. One of the "extras" they selected was a brick bbq in the backyard. Looking back on it now I find the choice amusing because they had no experience with outside grilling. They used the grill only once, a Memorial Day weekend, when I was 5. I distinctly remember it because the house their original home they sold to my uncle and his family the year before. Being small, I have no memory of the family's real estate transaction. I do have some memories of visiting their prior home for holidays and regular visits. I distinctly remember playing hide and seek with my cousins in the new house as I climbed into a window seat and fell asleep. That caused the adults to hysterically run around looking for me. The window seat became off limits to us after that. But back to the bbq grill...
The reason I remember the grill is because on that particular Memorial Day weekend my grandparents were giving a going away party to my uncle, recently divorced, who was going to move to Florida. They had bought their old home back from him and this was the last family get together in their "new" home. He was the only one in the family that knew how to light charcoal. The problem was there was a downpour shortly after he lit the briquettes and they were quickly extinguished. We ran into the house and since we were a large family in a small home, the women went to the kitchen to prepare the food on the stove and the rest of us were sent to the basement, which was pretty much empty. The adults brought down some folding chairs and the kids sat on the bare concrete to eat our hot dogs.
I share this story because 60 years ago my family, much like my neighbors, played musical households - selling to a family or friend and in our case, returning to the original home.
Sure, family, friends and neighbors traveled in wagon trains, passenger ships and on barges to emigrate to a new community. I hadn't really thought much about that being a common custom continuing today until my back yard chat with those "new" "old" neighbors yesterday.
In this ever changing world that requires almost daily adaptions, it's nice to think that we still seek the comfort of our loved ones to rely on in our neighbors for support.
No comments:
Post a Comment