Here Comes The Neighborhood

It might come as a bit of a surprise to you that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is not descended from royalty. She was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth. If she HAD been born with a spoon in her mouth, it would have been one of those tiny plastic red spoons like Dairy Queen forks over with their runny Blizzards. Or the even tinier one that Baskin Robbins uses for samples.

As I drove my mom back home from the doctor today, we turned onto the road that leads to her road. It's an outer road for a numbered two-lane highway. "Look at that! I wish the city would make them clean that up! Or maybe nobody lives there now."

The house she referred to has not had anybody living in it for at least ten years that I remember. It has a wooden fence around one side, but the grass was so high you could see it over the fence. That grass was like prize sunflowers, without the colorful blooms. Never mind that the house sits on the other side of the road, the side not within city limits. I turned left at the next road, and started up Mom's piece of blacktop.

"At least these people have cleaned up their yard!" Yes. It must have happened in the last two or three days, because when I went by there before, there were still about 20 cats sitting on the wooden porch rail of that rusty trailer, and their car had a flat tire, and old car seats and various kid toys still littered the front yard. Today even their tow truck sitting in the part of the yard that acts as their driveway looked like it might run.

The manufactured home across from it at least has a trim lawn, and a garden, and used to have actual giant sunflowers. I suppose they keep the grass low to attract buyers at their weekly yard sale.

We continued around the curve, past the old chicken farm with a long building where classic automobiles are detailed if the driver has connections, with their side yard full of classic automobile chassis and dismembered parts, weeds springing up through the gravel and autos. Across from it was the property that used to store carnival rides for the winter, while the carnies lived in a long house up behind them, that may or may not have once been a chicken house itself.

Next was a normal house, next to the old garage flanked by land that used to be an auto junkyard that a guy lived in for several years. Across from them was the opulent spread that used to be owned by my old 8th grade English teacher and her husband.

"You know, Mom...it's not like you live in the Hollywood Hills. This is how people take care of their stuff around here."

"I know. It's just that it's not near as bad as it used to be, but I want it to be better."

Mom's house was over the hill, the next one on the left. Across from her live the Czech neighbor and his wife, with their yard full of fake deer. And just past them, that neighbor who Mom has never taken a liking to, the tree-across-his-driveway guy.

"Oh, look, Mom! How nice his yard is! I don't see him out mowing today..."

"Well, he's out EVERY DAY, mowing.

"What do you want him to do, mow at night?"

"I want him to stop coming out and mowing every time I go out in my yard. I don't know what kind of job he has!"

"I think he's with the government, and his job is to spy on you. Hey! Why don't you tell him about that yard down the hill? That one with grass higher than the fence. Since he likes to mow, maybe he'll push his mower down there and mow that one every day."

"I just might talk to him about that."

Yeah. Probably the next time she goes out to trim her bushes, and feels him watching her while he mows his yard.