Mr. Rogers is Dead

My friend Beth and her family have moved into a new house, and she has written about how they have already met some nice neighbors. What the hell is that? I hate all my neighbors, current and former. I’ve lived here for almost thirteen years and the closest I’ve come to a positive feeling about any of them is indifference. It takes a concerted effort for me to be cordial to these people. Last summer MJ was nagging me about suggested that I mow the lawn. I wasn’t really interested; I was busy watching television or playing video games, but it had been at least a month since I’d mowed the lawn. So out I went into the midday July/August sunshine and commenced to mowing the lawn. My next door neighbor to the left/south, a kept man as far as I can tell, likes to make conversation by giving yard maintenance tips. He’s done this to my mother-in-law, who is almost as warm and fuzzy as me where it concerns inter-domicile relations. I almost quit mowing the lawn and almost went back inside because the only way this encounter was going to end was with this fool in a wood chipper and me in handcuffs. He’s your standard happy wanderer. He doesn’t seem to have a clue about what’s going on, and he doesn’t want one. It shouldn’t bother me but it does. I’m willing to own that character flaw. He started trying to sell me on letting him fertilize my lawn or something – like I don’t know it doesn’t look like a golf course. Our lawn doesn’t look like the rest of the lawns in the neighborhood because we don’t chemically enhance it. We let it go jungle style because, just like everyone else in our neighborhood, we have a pretty big yard and over-fertilization is ruining the river. So we deal with a little dollar weed and uneven growth. Maybe I’m crazy but the Saint Johns River helps make Jacksonville special, not everyone’s yard looking like a Lawn Doctor commercial. The Saint Johns supports a large part of the manufacturing and tourist industries, as well as the Navy. My yard is, at best, a demilitarized zone for the local tom cats – it is pretty cool watching them take turns sitting on my front porch and being masters of all they survey. Anyway, as you can see we have a basic philosophical difference. I want Jacksonville to continue to grow as a city. He wants a pretty lawn. I said no thanks to his offer, and he went happily about his business when he figured out I wasn’t going to turn off the mower to listen to what he had to say. He’s my best friend in the neighborhood.