by Lenna Gonya

Created on: August 29, 2010

I was thrilled when we got a new neighbor, but a little leery too. It’s a small, rural town, and mostly occupied by families that have been around for a long time. Back then, everyone knew everyone else, so when someone new moved in, we were curious. We knew the husband, since he was local, but his new wife was a city girl.

Julie was friendly, and willing to learn. She also asked a lot of questions about gardening, canning, and cooking. And she asked them twenty or thirty times a day. Since her husband worked at a regular job and farmed, he was seldom home, and she was feeling a little displaced in her new environment.

Our yards adjoined, and hers had a creek, with a high bank. I was mowing, and she was mowing. I was impressed. She was driving the lawn tractor. I glanced over to see how she was doing, and she was gone. Suddenly an ashen, panicked face appeared over the creek bank, sans tractor. Since part of the unspoken creed was to fix problems before husbands got home, we did manage to extricate the tractor, eventually. Explaining the "mowed over" fruit tree sapling was a little trickier, and involved an imaginary thunderstorm and a lightening bolt.

The really bad thing about being someone’s designated expert on every topic is that they think that you know something about every topic. A few weeks later the phone rang around 2:30 AM and a familiar voice informed me that she thought she had a skunk in the garage. On top of that, she said she thought it had babies. I was still asleep, so I congratulated her and told her to stay out of the garage.

Julie hadn’t driven in years, but decided to renew her license, which was both a good thing for her, and me, and a little frightening. I knew it was her when the phone rang because it was always her when I was in the middle of something. She was having a little problem and could I come over and help.

I trudged across the back yard toward her garage, which looked a little odd, since one side of the garage door frame was bowed out by about two feet. She was standing, staring at the rear of the car, which was the cause of the distortion. For a minute I was less concerned with her dismay and more in awe that anyone could attain the speed it took to move a garage, while still inside the garage. She tried pushing on the frame. “Do you think. . . .” she began. I had to break it to her that nothing we could do would fix this.

She has since moved, and things are a lot quieter in the neighborhood, and a lot more boring. Gee, I miss her.

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