North Street Neighbors

What great fun I am having these days with "authoring" a few blogs and being "administrator" for a few FaceBook pages. The comfort of my home office is in the old front room of g.grandma "Grace" Myrthena Freshour Perry's house on north street. The traffic on our "racetrack" street has slowed nicely as folks check out the site at 227 North Street and very blessed our corner has not been a casualty of another road accident. When Jack moved in to the SW corner of Fitch and North, I reminded him that he has the neighborhood job of calling in the accidents to the police department being in his house as I was relinquishing that duty which I covered after Rick and Kathy moved out. Jack thought I was kidding! I broke him in on the next accident which included phoning it in to local pd quickly assessing what emergency vehicles to dispatch ie. injury, non operating motor vehicle in roadway, fights, liquid leaks now called hazardous spill. Get to know the responders that show up as you never know when you might need help yourself. With phone in hand (make sure your house phone and not cell phone), grab bottle of water for the crash victim for drinking, etc. and direct traffic to avoid a secondary accident. Response time is pretty good unless another emergency at the same time whereas you will probably get another neighbor out to help you as the corner crashes do resonate into our old houses pretty well. Jack I think was a bit put off by this as "not disclosed" in his purchase of the home...but then again it is all good neighbors supporting each other in time of need.

We need not try to remember the arson fires a few years back that rocked our neighborhood and many lost sleep at night hearing the fire trucks patrolling our streets at night with the search lights searching for the arsonist. Not before he set many of our old structures on fire and a few more than once because our neighbors noticed the first ones before they did serious damage.

Our neighbors come and go like the tennants at the apartment house, work out of town as professional jobs are limited here, have lived their lives in their house and have passed on to our dear lord, moved on so that they can sell house to pay for kids college tuitition (these old ladies do hold value and also increase in value based on restoration), attempt to restore an old house but change opinion with pressures from building department that better to "tear the old thing down as not worth it and too expensive to restore - tear the place down, build new and go for the stars" forgetting you have neighbors. I feel blessed to be "new" to the neighborhood since 1988 and to have great neighbors around us. My parents loved town so much they moved here also and blessed they are our neighbors too.

I love the story from Ann Carranza (her son is a great sports couch to my son too) about sharing your plentiful fruit with neighbors and what a great way to get to know them better. Say "Hi", give a wave....especially during Farmer's Market or walking to/from with your bountiful of local harvest.