There are things I looked at every single day on the way to
work that made me ask: “Really?!?”
Yesterday, January 2, 2020, the day after New Year’s I was
zooming along to work on Route 5 in Fayetteville heading towards the intersection. I looked to the right and saw a dark colored
bike sprawled on the lawn on the right side of the road. I glanced to see if there was a person
anywhere nearby. Like Colonel Klink on
Hogan’s Heroes: I saw nothing. I know nothing. But it does make me wonder. I feel like I’ve seen a bike there before and
I’ve written this paragraph before. What
is it with abandoned bikes that unnerves me?
And then there is the Berm from Hell down the street from
me. A berm is supposed to be a mound of
dirt, usually made to look like the lawn rolled up all by itself, so that water
will not flow in a certain direction. A
good berm is a good thing and should make your heart want to sing “These
Thousand Hills Roll Ever On” at the top of your lungs. Not this berm.
This berm runs the full length of a property between two multi-family
houses. It has not been seeded with
grass. Giant rocks and debris are
visible. There is a messed-up looking
animal cage thrown on it. On the right
side are scattered toys – that are quite obviously unused and unloved. There are two chairs tilted on the right side
of the berm and one of those metal enclosed firepits sitting there…. As if
people would actually sit there for some odd reason. It looks like the collision of backyard stuff
and a dump heap all rolled into one. It
has been that way for more than a couple of years. It seems to get worse with attrition. I am wondering why the Town Zoning Board
doesn’t “lean” on whomever is responsible to clean that crap up.
Then there is what I call “the Limeade fence.” Same road.
Similar situation. A big house on
either side and a limeade and orange Tang-colored fence separates the two
properties. One neighbor put up
arborvitae trees to block – or shield – the view of the fence-from-Hell. Again, the Zoning Board should be all over
these jokers and get them to paint that fence a more “suburbial” color than
limeade green and Tang orange.
(As of this edit to the article, the neighbor on the west
side of the Limeade fence has added yet another fence in front of
it. Apparently the arborvitae trees
aren’t growing fast enough? Again,
Zoning Board: I’d fire you in a New York
City minute. Get cracking with some code
enforcement.)
The other day when there was no snow on the ground all of a
sudden I remembered that I should rake leaves out of the drainage ditch that
runs along the front of my property near the road. So I got down into that ditch and raked like
heck and transported the leaves to a composting location in the back yard, and
went in the house feeling pretty accomplished… and pretty tired for a mid-lifer
doing manual labor. A few days later as
I was waking up to start my day my eyes shot open with the thought: I didn’t dig out the drain pipe that
was not visible due to mud and rocks on it.
That matters because when the whatever source of water from my house –
be it sump pump or perhaps eves troughs, or whatever – drains out it needs a
place to go. If that small 6 inch
pipe is blocked very bad things could happen.
So on New Year’s Day I jumped down in the ditch again with my muddy
boots and work gloves and shovel and searched for the pipe. I found it quickly enough but had to throw a
lot of heavy muck over my shoulder to free the front of the pipe. Packed inside the front of the pipe was a
good four inches of mud and dirt, so I leaned over with a trowel and scooped
that disaster out. Within seconds, a
thin trickle of water came streaming out …. And continued for as long as I stood
there. Consequently, in the words of my
immortal Real Estate friend Judy, I had to “invite the water and then give it a
place to go.”
So I continued to dig in the trench to give the water a
place to move. I do not know how it got
blocked, by man or beast, but now I am aware of the need to keep tabs on the
condition of that drain at all times. So
aggravating. I wish I was the type of
woman that men would love to take out dining and dancing late into the night. But by virtue of where I live, I am the type
of woman who is standing in muddy boots in a trench looking at blocked pipes
and muttering soft profanities to herself.
I think of my former neighbor from Bridgeport, in his 80’s who said to
me, “Naw, some people move here frum the city and think they kin make it in the
country and they just aint cut for it.”
Glen would be proud of me. I just
know it.
Yet another enigma. I
want to acknowledge the personal pain that causes people to set up roadside
shrines. I know that every time they
pass the place where their loved one died in a car crash or bicycle accident or
the like, it is painful for them. So
they erect memorials. But I am sure we
should revisit the meaning of the Original Symbol before we go altering it as a
seasonal decoration. I am referencing
the most popular memorial: the wooden
cross – a symbol of where the Savior of the World died – that has been put up
as a memorial for someone … and now at Christmas has silver-blue garland
wrapped around it (yes THAT kind of garland) and a Santa hat on top. All of those symbols on the cross do not work
for the rest of us. They are kind of
disrespectful. Nonetheless, your grief
is duly noted and we are sorry. But, really.
Lastly, and it pains me to write this, the Dead Piano. No philosophy teacher has ever asked the
important question: Where do Old Pianos
go to die? And yet, down the street is a
piano on someone’s front yard. Yep. They just apparently had their fill of it and
shot it out on the grass next to the driveway.
It fell over. It has been there
for six months now. It is all bashed up
in pieces. I am wondering if her
ex-husband played piano when he was cheating on her with a music teacher or
WHAT?!? But it is mid-winter and the piano
lies in a heap right there for all the world to see.
Huh. All these suburban
travesties. And I thought we were harsh
on my friend Joe when we gave him the business for keeping a dead, rusty pick
up truck on his front lawn. Go figure.
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one side of The Berm from Hell:
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