The story of the four neighbors

We moved to our neighborhood a few years ago. It’s a new development, so everyone in this area is new to the space. We had never been overly neighborly in years past. We knew our neighbors, but mostly from a distance. We’d exchange friendly greetings, comment on the weather or local happenings, inquire about kids and pets. But it has always been rare for us to do more than that. We aren’t historically the type to just pop over or share a beer in the garage as is somewhat customary in this part of the world. So when we first moved here we thought we’d make a better go of being a little more engaged with the folks around us. I even bought beer specific to the purpose, which was not nothing, so I don’t drink beer. And then Covid happened—and that idea dissipated into the ether.

Still, we know our new neighbors as well as we had before. Perhaps a little more so. Being a new neighborhood, there have been more calls for local gatherings and picnics than in the more established places we have lived prior. And our random encounters have tended to be a bit more robust in substance and length. I’ve enjoyed that. It’s different for us, but it feels right. There’s something charming about a community actually being a community and coming together and supporting one another.

That was driven home to me all the more last week when our riding mower went kaputt. One of the belts had come off its track (or so I thought) and as a result the blade could no longer be made to spin. Our next door neighbor (Neighbor No. 1) was out when this happened, and I appealed to him for assistance, given that he’s an engineer and was also at the moment riding a mower not unlike our own. But no dice. He didn’t have the tools needed to get the belt back into place. So we walked over to his next door neighbor—a newly retired engineer (Neighbor No. 2)—who was working in his garage. That’s we discovered that the belt had actually snapped. There was no fixing that: it just needed replacing. He could do it though, and while I worked on getting a replacement, he loaned me his mower. I was feeling pretty blessed in that moment to be able to finish the work I started and to have a line on learning how to fix the issue with no. 2.

Apparently I was feeling so blessed that I missed the part where he mentioned the he had a bagging mower, while we had a mulching one. So when I finished, I realized I now had a huge amount of grass I needed to rake up and dispose of. Normally not a big deal. But it was a lot of grass and it is not picked up here by our waste management. We need to deal with that ourselves. I was considering my options, rake in hand, when I spotted our neighbor across the street (Neighbor No. 3), walking toward me with one of his buddies. His buddy explained to me that he does some small-time farming and was in need of some fresh, green grass. He was wondering if he could take my grass clippings. This was so fortuitous is seemed like a joke. Yes: PLEASE TAKE THEM! He even brought bags!

As I toiled through cleanup, a neighbor from down the street stopped me. This would be Neighbor No. 4. He had a lawn sweeper that could do everything I was trying to do in a fraction of the time. He hooked it up to his tractor and in a few moments it was all done. A few moments later all the grass was gone.

This whole series of events still seems bonkers to me. Even more bonkers that the following night, Neighbor No. 2 put on the new belt I bought in fifteen minutes without need of any aid at all.

So yeah, a good community and good neighbors make all the difference. I’m certainly very grateful for ours.