Our Roanoke County cul-de-sac was an interesting place to live for over the sixteen years. We had a number of great neighbors and we even called ourselves the "Over the Hill Gang" for a few years. Of course we lived just over the crest of our hill on Fairway View Trail, and except for the baby of the group, we all were well over fifty.
When you live this close to people for years you get to know them pretty well. You can tell when they are home and when they go to bed. In most cases when the newspaper disappears from its box is a good indication of when the first person in the house gets up. There are some exceptions to that, but more on that later. Some of us who have done more than our share of business travel, understand that the newspaper remaining outside until eight or even nine o'clock on a weekday, means someone is on the road and the lady of house might just be sleeping in a little.
Once I got a yellow sticky note in my newspaper box at 7:15 am that said simply "Three mornings in a row." That was a none too subtle jab from my early rising neighbor that I just might be enjoying a little too much the more relaxed life style that came with my new job. He had beaten me to the newspaper three mornings in a row. Of course I had provoked the sticky by leaving a note in his box at 8 am the previous Saturday. My note said, "Sleeping in is a sign of civility."
Sticking notes in our newspaper boxes was only one the things that made having close neighbors a lot of fun. There were plenty of Super Bowl parties and more than a few cookouts on our decks.
Aside from the inevitable comments that we traded about our wives taking advantage of our business travels to catch some extra sleep, we also had a running debate with one of our neighbors about whether the news was even worth retrieving if the paper aged in the box until the evening. To me print is always worth the trouble but the shelf life is just a few hours.
My early rising neighbor and I maintained that the news is hardly worth reading by night so you have to read it in the morning. One neighbor who used to exercise at night and read the paper then maintained that the news is so out of date that it doesn't matter when he reads it or even if he reads it. Obviously that is the opinion of someone who has never been close to newspapers and writing. My strong opinions about seeing the news in print as I detailed in my, "Love and Respect for Print" were formed long ago and are unlikely to change. Mostly it is just good-natured kidding.
When spring came during our years on the hill, my love of taking sunrise pictures always gave me the upper hand since I tried not to miss many sunrises as the sun rotated around to coming up over downtown Roanoke. More than once I got up at 6:45 am, snapped a couple of pictures, looked at the snow on the deck and laid down to catch another thirty minutes of sleep.
One other rite of spring was mowing our yards and that was far more serious than when the morning newspaper made it into the house. Our over the hill gang had a proud tradition, actually almost a requirement for membership, that we mowed our own yards.
Even back then that was something of an oddity in a world which has more lawn services than almost anything else. Usually I enjoyed mowing until about the end of September when I started running out of steam. Still some weeks mowing my yard was the only thing I really accomplished that I could see and feel. Another neighbor who moved away swore that before he bought his next new house, he was going to check and see if his new neighbors allowed lawn services. No one said living was easy on top of the mountain.
One year I had the advantage since I was between jobs, and I could mostly mow when my yard needed it. Since I used to cut six hundred acres of hay a year, and my life was defined by growing seasons, mowing still reminded me that there is still a rhythm to the seasons even here in subdivision on the side of a mountain.
Sometimes I took some ribbing over my yard's perfectly clipped appearance, but mine was not the only one that was close to immaculate. I used to tease one neighbor about vacuuming leaves from his flower beds since the wind tended to blow everything out of ours into his.
When we weren't fussing with our yards, we worried about the backs of our lots which as any Virginian will tell you, grow into a vigorous tangle unless you cut it down yearly. Our back was a cliff which over the years I brought into a semblance of order through liberal work with my chain saw and lots of "Brush be Gone." I liked my yard, but working on a slope where standing is almost impossible was not exactly fun especially when working with a chain saw.
My early-rising neighbor just across the street had an epic battle with his backyard over the years. It was mulched, grassed, and even mulched again. A newly constructed house next door created a big drainage problem and did not help matters. That year we enjoyed counting the dump trucks of mulch that went to cover our neighbor's bank. We moved before we figured out whether the mulch was a permanent or a temporary victory over the aggressive Virginia vegetation that liked to take over when we turned our backs.
Sometimes I suspected my early rising neighbor just laid awake waiting to hear the newspaper being delivered just so he could have it hot off the press.
It was a good thing the yards got green early in Roanoke, it took our focus off the newspaper box.
Dave - I loved it.
Posted by: Robert | March 09, 2005 at 10:49 PM