Local woman blames self for rash of neighborhood foreclosures.

Was it something I said, or maybe didn’t say? Was my friendly waving misunderstood?
Did the toot of my car horn have a tone?

The house next door is empty. The one across the street? Vacant. The big Victorian
right across the alley from our garage? Yeah, nobody home. I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s something I did. Or didn’t do.

I always meant to invite the next door family over for a barbeque and the family across the street, but . . . well . . . I just never got around to it. They seemed so busy. Coming and going. Did the guy work two jobs? I think the woman did.

I suppose it would have helped if I had known their real names. That’s a problem with my neighborhood – very ethnically mixed. Hmong, Thai, Vietnamese, Hispanic, Mexican – a lot of people don’t speak english and I don’t speak very fluent Hmong and can’t remember any of my high school Spanish, hence the waving and the beeping.

I knew my neighbors only by the names that I made up for them. Let’s see, there was the Pear Family – very big butts and kept a goat in their basement (a fact I found out from the guy who lived next door to them after they left in the middle of the night.) His name? Nearly Dead Ron. He’s an emaciated ex-junkie, not to be confused with Really Dead Ron, who used to be known as plain old Ron until he had a massive coronary in his kitchen a couple of years ago and was undiscovered until . . . well, that’s what the smell was.

The late family next door? I called them The Family, because that’s what they were – I know, I had a lapse in creativity when they moved in. I was in the throws of my personal Great Depression and the medication hadn’t kicked in. By the time it did, well . . . the name had stuck. The people across the street? Who lived in the former drug house? That I was responsible for shutting down? They hadn’t been around long enough for me to get a sense of them.

So, okay, I’m not a people person. I never was. I don’t even call my friends all that much. Of course, I blame my mother for that. See, back in the day, we had what was called a limited phone line, meaning we could only make one out-going call a day but, had unlimited incoming calls, and because my father was a police officer I wasn’t allowed to call up my friends and chat about nothing, because, what if he was trying to get through and couldn’t – no call waiting – and then, went out on his beat and got killed? Who’d get blamed for that? Guess. Score eleven on the guilt-o-meter.

Well, now, just a minute. Relationships are a two-way street, right? I mean, in my defense, no one ever made an effort to get to know me. In the 25 years that I’ve lived in my house, we’ve never had one Trick or Treater come and ring our doorbell. And we always have good candy! Mini Kit Kats!
I think it’s because . . . of our hill. There’s 13 steps to climb to get from the city sidewalk to our front gate and then another four steps to get up on our porch. Geeze. People! Make an effort! At least meet me halfway. Somewhere in the middle of the block. I’ll be the one in my car waving as I drive by.