Modern Wisdom
A week ago, Thursday my husband and I along with our next-door neighbor/friend, Amy, were coming back from our local VFW, when something gave us pause. For context, Amy was being inducted as a friend of the VFW, and it was our first visit. Our friends around the corner, Jo and Jack, are members and have been talking about it to us for a while. Both Chris and I enjoyed our evening there.
It was my first time driving in a long time because of my vision issues. I was a bit nervous, but the hubs and our neighbor had a few adult beverages, and I wanted to make sure we got home safe. It was dark, which helps with glare except for oncoming headlights. Fortunately, in our sleepy little neighborhood nobody was out on our short path home. Chris gave me affirmations that I was doing okay so with shaky confidence I did it. I felt good until we got to the corner by our house.
As we came up the side street I saw flashing lights – then as we approached the corner – a firetruck, squad truck, and three cop cars were out in front of our house. I’m thinking, “Oh, God, the one time we go somewhere, and something has happened to our house.” And… “Oh, God, my first time driving in ages and I’m going to be stopped.” But I wasn’t.
As I sat at the corner taking it all in and waiting for the cop car to move out of the way, I realized they were taking the guy across the street out of his house on a stretcher. Amy bolted out of the car after I parked and into the street calling his name and asking what happened to Ralph!?!
Knowing Your Neighborhood
I’ve lived across the street from Ralph for eight years. I found out a few days later from Amy that he passed away four days after we had seen him taken away. But I really didn’t know him. When you live in an older small-town neighborhood within a larger city and work from home like I do, you become observant of the ebb and flow – who walks their dog when, when people come and go, etc. I knew he was an older veteran that drove a cab for a veteran owned, operated, and staffed taxi company. I would see him coming and going and waving and saying polite hellos as neighbors do. I knew he lived with his granddaughter and maybe a couple of other people I saw coming and going. I would see him sitting out on his front porch for the past eight summers in the warm, humid air – what we call close – watching the neighborhood go by.
Amy said it was a stroke. I thought of Chris’s strokes and felt gratitude that Chris survived, but sad for Ralph’s family he did not. As read his obit, I was surprised. He was ninety. I never would have guessed that this unassuming, pleasant man who I still saw leaving in his taxi to work regularly was 90. I would have guessed him to be in his 70s. That made him a Korean war vet, not a Viet Nam vet as I had previously thought. According to his obit he had a full life and a large family, outliving many. Should I think of this as resilience/grit or sad that a person his age was still compelled to earn a paycheck? Is this inspiration for the days I am dragging from the side effects of cancer treatment? I do not want to make assumptions.
Strange Things
And then there’s other strange things going on in the neighborhood around us. Okay, so now I have the Ghostbusters theme as an earworm with Stranger Things images – just great.
First, there’s Ginny that lives next door to Ralph, and directly across the street from us, who we haven’t seen in more than a week. I would guess she is nearly the same age as Ralph. She usually comes and goes in her little car, gardens, and is seemingly completely healthy. Chris and I have both had conversations with her over the years, so we know her a little better than Ralph. About a week ago, I saw a middle-aged man pull up in her car into her driveway and pull back further than she does, past her garbage cans. And then he left. And her porch light has been left on around the clock since, something that Jenny never does. So, where is Jenny?
Before I found out that Ralph had passed, I had a fleeting thought that they may have taken off somewhere for fun. It’s a nice idea totally not based on reality.
Second, on the other side of Ginny’s house, is the house that Amy has dubbed “the murder house,” because on Halloween 2024 a former renter was shot by the owner’s son in self-defense, returning several months after eviction in a rage. The house, which is a large two-story with a separate four car garage in the back with an apartment above, has been empty for two years with someone occasionally coming by to cut the grass. This past week I also spotted a woman during the day nosing around the house and disappearing through the padlocked fence only to come back a few minutes later to get in her SUV and leave. She’s not one of the usual people we see checking on the house or taking care of the yard. So inquiring minds are wondering.
It’s like Rear View Window over here. I just don’t know what is going on, and it’s difficult to not let my imagination loose. And I feel uneasy that our neighbors may change. I’m used to the people that are here.
This has me thinking. We don’t know our timeline. Maybe that’s a gift; maybe it’s not. The young couple next door, Matt and Katie, just moved to the outer suburbs that I used to live in. Now Matt has a commute that’s either 25 minutes or an hour and a half on any given day. I used to take photos of the traffic carnage aka highway parking lot from behind the wheel in my daily frustrations, posting them in complaint on social media, only to be admonished for using my phone while driving. I wasn’t driving. I was sitting in gridlock!!!
But I did not say anything to Matt or Katie because I knew it wouldn’t do any good. Katie is in search of the suburban dream. And maybe they will find their paradise there. I did not.
Tribes
I moved to my current location from the outer burbs eight years ago. It’s close to work, affordable mostly, and walkable to the grocery, bank, post office, library, shopping, bars and mom and pop restaurants, a quirky antique store, etc. There’s public transportation a block and a half from me on the main road if I ever need it. Importantly, I can be at the hospital in one direction or downtown in another direction on surface streets in 10 minutes. We only need to fill up our cars maybe once a month.
And since I’ve been here, I’ve found my community tribe.
You wouldn’t know it by driving on my street or either of the cross streets what’s hidden here. Around the back of my garage with a quick jaunt through Matt’s yard is a gravel easement with heavy draping trees that almost has a New Orleans or English village path feel. It’s a beautiful oasis in the urban landscape and the way to our friends’ backyard, where they have created paradise. That’s where our tribe gathers and ventures from. And that’s not something you get in the cookie-cutter bedroom communities with HOA’s or gates always chasing more. I’m so glad that I got off that train. I now have abundance more profound. Isn’t it ironic? I don’t think so.
So, What’s the Point?
If you’ve read this far, thank you. I heard something today listening to a podcast about existential grappling that AI is going to end us by the end of the decade and seems apt. Intelligence is the ability to solve problems. Wisdom is the ability to know which problems to solve. I extrapolate that to mean it is the human connections that are going to save us from ourselves, not someone or something behind a screen. And it will probably be from someone who remembers what it was like before, someone who remembers the analog world many have left behind. There is value that might just save us in knowing your neighbors, hanging out face to face, with people from different backgrounds and ages, away from binary bubbles.
I’m far from a luddite. And I’m hoping AI increases longevity and cures cancer and other great stuff. I’m also not naïve of the dog whistle’s calling foul. But I think the answer is to find your own oasis, using common sense and creating safeguards. I think when we put out into the universe what we want, we are answered with what we need. And an end will eventually find each of us. So why not enjoy the present, and pay attention, even if it is a little Rear View Window-ish?
I will miss Ralph on his porch.
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Our Humble Road 