Freckles Lives Here

I wonder why some folks refuse to call 911. Recently, one of our neighbors had a medical incident and drove himself to the hospital. Well, he tried to drive himself to the hospital but instead he drove into a ditch. That’s not what this is about though. This is about our neighborhood. I’m beginning to think it’s weirder than most.

Ironically, that guy lived next door to the French woman who called 911 constantly. She would stand waiting on her driveway with her purse on her shoulder until the EMS guys had to tell her, “That’s not how this works, Ma’am.”

Then there’s the house where the 500 lb. potbellied pig lives. Freckles walks on a leash but won’t budge unless you give him a treat.

There’s the old German woman with the dog that always ran (well, wandered) away. Thankfully everyone knew Tasha and would bring her home. We went by once and Tasha was lying on the front lawn. Our neighbor had gone to Home Depot forgetting to put her in the house. (Hubby wanted to take Tasha home to teach mom a lesson, but I wouldn’t let him.)

There was the older couple who insisted on driving to New Jersey. They actually made it there but had a fight and the husband got out at a stop light saying, “Have a nice life.” The NJ police found him sitting on someone’s lawn and called us since we were the only names he could remember.

There’s the ex-ballet dancer who walks with a limp and has a three-legged Great Dane. She disappears for months at a time, most recently returning without the dog.

There’s the bicyclist who rides up and down for hours every day. (In full cycling gear I always thought it was a woman, but I learned recently that there’s an ongoing debate among the neighbors about this.)

There’s the “Californians” who moved here years ago with California tags so that’s how they’ll always be known. We don’t really know them. They just wave when they walk by with their dog in a stroller.

Then there’s the house where the barefooted hillbilly lives. When they moved in there was a tree house in their backyard until one night they found the previous owner up there drunk and quickly tore it down.

It’s not me, right? The neighborhood is weird.

Funny thing is that I kind of like it and have felt comfortable here since I started bringing my cat and dog for weekends at “Club Joe” almost thirty years ago.