Neighbo(u)rs

When I was asked "Who are our neighbours?" at the Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School in Old Farnley, so many years ago, I thought it was a trick question.   I expected an immediate gold star, as I knew the names of everyone on my street.  But the waters were definitely muddied when I heard the story of  The Good Samaritan, because it became a complicated exercise that I was not yet equipped to answer.

Who were my neighbours?    Perhaps it depends on how the word is spelled.

The wonderful Wood family was our favorite neighbour when we lived at 28 Baronsmead in Whitkirk, Yorkshire.   The mother, Monica, who became my Mum's friend, tended such a beautiful garden filled with riotous color and complementary textures, that my mother, each spring, vowed she was going to emulate her.   However, by June, Mum had changed her mind, as it took more time and effort than she was willing to expend.  But we all continued to enjoy Monica's gift of  beauty to the entire street.

One kindly neighbor on Malcolm Avenue in West Los Angeles, was an elderly man who had a boa constrictor named Curly.  The poor creature's spine was lumpy and misshapen, and its skin literally curled over bony knobs along the entire length of his body.  My son was Curly's regular visitor, and when Roger's two cousins, Jason and Luke, visited from Adelaide, Australia, Curly was an integral part of the welcoming committee.   Later, when I was a docent at the Los Angeles Zoo and our neighbor developed leukemia, I found Curly a new home there. The malformed boa fascinated the children, and became a regular in the Discovery Circle (where we handled the animals and brought them up close to the children), along with a ferret, a burrowing owl, an opposum, a turtle, and a hawk.

Once, on a chilly day when I went to the reptile house to pick up a ball python to take the shedding Curly's place, the curator urged me to put the cloth bag holding the snake under my coat to keep it warm.   "It's the neighborly thing to do for our scaly buddies," he said.   So I did, and hugged it close.    When it was time to display the small python,  my ear heard a rattle and my hand definitely felt one as I reached into the bag to take out the snake.   I snatched back my hand, pulled the drawstring tightly on the bag, dangled it far from my body (in the cold air but who cared at that point?), and vibrated with anxiety all the way back to the reptile house where I vociferously complained about some lunatic who had given me a dangerous animal instead of a benign one.   "I could've been killed," I asserted to loud gales of laughter.   In the bag was the ball python with a rattler's rattle stuck to its spine--a reptile lover's idea of  a joke.  Ha ha.

My religious great grandmother, Emma Bradbury, was a well-known figure in her neighbourhood of Wortley, Leeds.   She was an important woman in the Salvation Army and took all its tenets seriously, including abstinence from alcohol.   She was a regular visitor to the local public houses, though, where she either kindly cajoled  or more grimly bullied their clientele to donate a little of their booze money for good causes in the area.   She could always be depended upon to utter entertaining sallies as she did so, no doubt accounting for her great success in this regard.  "You in your small corner . . ." were her words of thanks, taken from the lyrics of a well-known children's hymn.

Each Christmas, when my mother was small, Emma took her to Farnley Hall, the stately home of the Armitage family, to receive its annual donation for the Salvation Army.   It was a memorable experience for Mum.    As Emma was always invited to stay for a cup of tea in the kitchen, Mum looked forward to a slice of creamy sponge cake and a fizzy drink, treats that were unaffordable for her parents.  It was also a time when she felt special:  her sisters weren't there.

During World War II in England,  neighbours came from farther afield.    When my grandparents' house was completely obliterated by a bomb, my mother offered them a home with her in the countryside of New Farnley.   That lasted for three weeks, which was as long as my grandmother could stand the quiet of the surrounding fields and woods.   Instead, she volunteered to run a boarding house in the area known as The Grasmeres for single male war workers from around the country who had been posted to Leeds, and where she could once again enjoy the trams and other traffic noises.   One of her boarders, Mr. Hastie, stayed for quite a while after the war.   He entertained my cousin Norman and me at dinner by feeding us his peas from the edge of a knife whenever my grandmother was out of the room.   Another boarder, Cecil, also remained after the war, and worked at the News Theatre in Leeds.   He always sneaked in Dad and me for free.    It was where I fell in love with Laurel and Hardy and took an immediate dislike to The Three Stooges.

When my father was demobilized in 1946, there were still some German prisoners-of-war in the neighbourhood who were awaiting repatriation.   My father always spoke to these lonely men as they walked down Lawns Lane for exercise.   He befriended one of them who had a daughter the same age as me (four).   He was a cobbler, and he made me a pair of lovely slippers that he wove from some rope.

One day, a couple of neighbourhood men came to the house to demand that Dad either stop fraternizing with the enemy or they would see to it that he was ostracized.    My father was furious.   His response was to tell them to go jump in the lake (in Old Farnley about a mile away):   "I've done my bit for King and country," he told them.  "And I was in the Middle East and separated from my wife and child  for over three years," he continued.   "My daughter was 3 months old when I left, and three-and-a-half years old when I saw her next.  The friggin' war is now over," he said fiercely, "And some of these poor buggers have had the same experience as me-- haven't seen their kids in years, and are in need of some kind words and a friendly gesture.  So go right ahead and ostracize me." 

Neighbo(u)rs.   I guess, like most other things, they're in the sight of the beholder.