Neighboring: bracketing a chunk of time.

Sometimes a phone call can bracket a whole chunk of a lifetime. My neighbor from long ago decided to call me up yesterday! I remember very clearly the first time I met her: we had moved in with our three young children just weeks before and there was a knock on the door. The caller was a tiny slip of a girl with a long ponytail and a Lancashire accent. She was cute as a button and after introducing herself she immediately explained "if it were my son, I would expect someone to tell me…"

Oh oh.

Turned out my five-year old son had explored into their open garage and discovered beautiful stones in there-- some of which he had collected! "I would have given them him had he asked," she assured me, "but it just wouldn't be right, would it, to let him just pinch 'em? 'e didn't know better, but now is when they learn!" She and her husband, emigrated from Blackpool, were rock collectors. And my son was one too, but he was only five and this neighbor wisely provided guidance.

Now she is a grandmother. Last time I saw her (five years ago or more) she looked for all the world like the woman she called "me mum" looked when she visited from Blackpool: thickened and pudgy, hair cropped mannishly and greying, voice deepened. But on the phone yesterday she sounded like the same 95-pound sylph inside, and she said "I miss you!"

We talked about gardens and kids and the ten truckloads of manure we and our husbands had hauled in from a local horse pasture for our two neighboring gardens, years ago; and how then we had called out for pizza, and sat in our very grubby clothes around a table on the front lawn with pizza and beer and laughed our weary heads off. That was years and years ago.

They must do a much better job of "neighboring" in Lancashire than I have found in this country. The robust, direct, good-hearted transactions continued through some thirty years and bracketed the lives of our children and grandchildren and any number of other neighbors coming and going. Our part of the street was untouched by petty crimes because of her neighboring-- not much happened that she did not notice and tell about. If you wanted to know anything about anyone, she would give you a "just between you and me" report. I am sure she shared items of my life with others in the same way; it comes with the "neighboring" package! And I think it's really ok, even if a few family secrets leak out.

Well, it was so good to hear from her, and yes, I did ask her about the neighbors, and about the new occupant of my old house. Only she would have been able to tell me the true status of my old garden. Half of my perennials came from starts she gave me. She would come down and plunge them into my "iffy" soil, saying "it'll grow, luv." And it did! When she bought an apple tree, she got one for me so they could pollinate each other. Things like that.

Now they have had a lawn crew come and trim my old garden. I'm glad because I had driven by and peeked at it a couple of years ago and everything was badly overgrown. No one was picking the apples or pruning the barberry or trimming the privet hedges. The blackberries and ivy had taken over.

Now she tells me the new owner will probably pull out all but a few shrubs and "beauty bark" everything else, including the grass area. After all, she was the one who suggested it to him, just being neighborly! My now grown son (the erstwhile rock collector) tells me he hopes someone lets him know if that house goes up for sale. He would like to buy it and raise his two kids on it down the street from a very good neighbor.

When I talk to her next, I'll give her his phone number so she can let him know -- because she will know if it goes up for sale. And she will tell him-- straightaway!

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