Neighborhood Stories

This past weekend we had some good neighborhood experiences. On Saturday, the little crowd up in our corner of this country club (Peter, and Teresa/Ted) were out helping our Bracken Brae residents down the road to dig trenches and ditches to divert water from the rains away from their homes. I and John were assigned to provide a lunch for the work crew that day: but they finished early, due to the aforementioned rains which started up unexpectedly early; so we offered a Rain Check lunch for them for Sunday noon instead, after they finished the work.

Meanwhile, I made up a big cauldron of meaty lentil soup and stocked in sandwich rolls and condiments and meats/cheeses – and baked oatmeal-raisin-chocochip-walnut cookies.

On Sunday morning it was raining again, but the brave crew got out and finished their work anyway; and then they showed up at our door. Before they got here, I took a basket with a lunch made up of the soup and sandwich stuff and cookies and drove down to our park Treasurer's house: Lynne is recuperating from hip surgery and was sad to be stuck indoors while others were out working; she's 75 years old, but always digs right along with the rest when she can.

We had a fire going in the living room woodstove, and our Christmas tree lights twinkling, as the cold and wet crew came in; and we all had a jolly couple of hours slurping up the hot soup and other viands and gathering around the fire for cookies and tea. We got to hear a great deal more of neighborhood lore (i.e. gossip) and came to like our new friends even better. We talked about Lynne, and about her friend and neighbor across the street, old Connie: she is the spittin' image of a tough frontier Granny, and was out there digging the ditches with her one good hand (which usually has a cigarette dangling from the fingers) -- her other hand has been injured temporarily, probably in chopping down redwoods or wrangling a bear, or something. But Connie doesn't like to socialize, so she didn't join us, sadly.

Later in the afternoon, we had the house to ourselves, and enjoyed a lovely, quiet evening by the fire, listening to a recording we'd made earlier in the day, of the "Prairie Home Companion" show from NYC this weekend – with guests Met diva Renée Fleming and the great Yo Yo Ma accompanying her on his cello.

On Tuesday morning, after a ripping all-night rain with great peals of thunder rolling down the valley, neighbor Peter came knocking at our door as we were finishing breakfast. "Want to go out and play in the snow?" he inquired. John was up for that, I was not (having a slight throat infection but being extra-cautious). So off the boys went in Peter's four-wheel drive wagon, up a couple of miles on Route 9 and then canting onto a rough road that heads straight up vertically; and they found a couple of inches of depth at the top of the grade. It is not revealed whether they made snowballs and pelted each other, or created snow angels on the white stuff – whatever they did, it must have been a might chilly up there; I was glad to stay home and make chicken soup, myself!