Blessed With The Best: My Next Door Neighbor

What makes a good neighbor?

All of my life, I’ve seen movies, TV shows and heard stories from families and friends about the “Neighbor From Hell”. Everything from being inconsiderate and rude to extremes such as violent and racist. Thankfully, growing up in my section of East Chicago in the 70s, I had the benefit of a neighborhood melting pot. The same families in the same houses for years, growing together as a community. A place where the village indeed came together to raise a child.

That is what I hoped and prayed for in a permanent neighbor, unlike some of the people I had encountered while living in apartments back in college and as a young married couple.

In 2001, we relocated to Reynoldsburg, Ohio. And we got just that, in fact, 360 degrees of it.

Our home was a new build in a growing development, many of the families being first timers. Ours, being the second to last home constructed in the immediate vicinity, we were the ones welcomed by all. And when I mention 360 degrees, I mean just that. On either side, behind us and across the street, nothing but kind, warm, greeting neighbors.

Our neighborhood was so unified that during holidays, everyone participated. Halloween saw the flooding of children in the streets, collecting “safe” candy from every house. And I do mean EVERY. Christmas looked like downtown Chicago or New York, with all of the lighting set up in and out of the homes. And each Fourth of July, we were treated to the greatest display of fireworks in the city, courtesy of one neighbor down the street who simply collected our aluminum cans throughout the year to pay for them.

One of my neighbors around the corner is a devout Ohio State University fan and hosts parties every game day in his garage, complete with full catering and two indoor and outdoor display screens. Complete with memorabilia and always seen wearing Buckeye paraphernalia. His spot is formally dubbed the “Garage Mahal”.

The local news has been to his place twice to do a feature on him since we moved here.

We even had a block party around the corner once a year, complete with barriers to section off the street, a DJ and food set up by volunteer participants.

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Here we are, 20+ years later, and many of our great neighbors have come and gone. It’s not like it used to be at all. Not much participation at Halloween, Christmas is touch and go with illumination, there is no fireworks display because someone called the police to file a complaint on the creator and the block parties have been canceled due to violence brought in by teenagers from other neighborhoods.

Most of my neighbors are gone and the good-natured children are now young parents, long since moved away.

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But one neighbor, my good friend Abass from Sierra Leone, has been here from Day 1 to present. And since we first met, he’s been a great neighbor. So much so that we consider him family.

He’s been there to assist us with home repair, outdoor disasters in our back yard (thanks to my lazy kids who stopped mowing the lawn as frequently as I used to when I was younger, stronger and healthier), even called to notify me when/if a package has arrived at my home. A courtesy which I gladly reciprocate, oftentimes, taking his items into my own home to keep safe until he returns.

Come wintertime, it’s not uncommon to find that he has awakened before all of us, shoveling not only his sidewalk and driveway, but that of ours and other immediate neighbors.

Even when all the houses finally put fences up to separate our properties, he was understanding when our contractors erected ours. They had checked the city lines and made measurements before putting ours up, but my neighbor told me he believed they had gone a few feet over into his property. Understanding that it had already been completed and paid for, he let it go, although he could have made the demands for it to be corrected.

One of our funnier moments was when the movie “300” came to video. We had just had our basement finished and I had a new TV and surround system put in place for a special screening of the new Blue Ray with all my buddies. 8 of us in total. It was a testosterone fest, “guys only” and I invited him to attend. The shock came when he showed with his then girlfriend, who we obviously did not turn away. He had realized that when I said “the fellas” were coming only that it was like The Little Rascals “He Man Woman Haters Club” for one day only.

After the movie, we asked her what she thought of it and she said she didn’t like it because she wasn’t into those types of movies.

Anyway…

I couldn’t ask for a better neighbor and never miss an opportunity to tell him how fortunate we were to have moved into this plot. Whenever we get a the chance to show him just how appreciative we are, we do it. He does the same, telling us that we were everything he looked for.

We moved in when I was 33. I’m 56 now and my four sons are between the ages of 24 and 34. We now have a grandchild who will be 2 at the end of next month and Abass has been there since she arrived, bearing gold, frankincense and myrrh (actually more like, golden Oreos, franks and muffins), ready to take photos of the newest edition to “his” family.

Yeah, he and I have lived next to each other longer than my years of growing up with my own family back in East Chicago.

So yeah, he’s not like family. He IS family.

And we’ve been blessed with the best.

So to answer the question, THAT is what makes a good neighbor.

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