My next door neighbor of 21 years just disappeared out of thin air.
Starting a few months ago, I commented to my wife one day that I haven't seen a shadow of our nice fellow neighbor Kent (Mr. Chubby, as my wife likes to nick-name him) or his wife around their backyard or house front for quite a while. She said she noticed the same and felt strange too. Maybe they are on a long vacation, we thought. But then another month passed, and there was still no signs of Mr. & Mrs. C. in or around their house. So one day I walked up my backyard slope and took a peek at their backyard. What I saw surprised me: the swimming pool was totally drained, and some weeds were coming out around the yard. The next day I walked up to their front door, the front yard lawn was pretty much browned out, which up to that moment I thought was because they were conserving water usage like everyone else here, maybe more extreme than others, per the water district's instruction, but then when I peeked into their front window after ringing the door bell and no one answered, I was surprised again, the room was all empty, all furniture were gone, only the curtains were left hanging. Mr & Mrs. C were indeed gone.
Looking back, for all those 21 years, all I know about Mr. C was he used to work for McDonnell Douglas, the big defense company that later got merged with Boeing, before he retired from the job and moved into this house, and started running a chemical storage monitoring business of his own. He invited me once into his house, showing the nice stone floor, living room cabinets that he built himself. He took care of his yard meticulously and once suggested (and I did) use the same gardener he used who was much more expensive but did a fine job for him (not for me though, in my opinion, so I fired him later). We also used the same pool service man for quite a few years. I also remember once he commented the smell of the barbeque we had at our backyard party was very tempting, so the next day I barbequed some for him and handed it over the backyard fence to him and his wife and they were flattered..
Other than that, it was just occasional hellos and waves and smiles when we happened to see each other while picking up mails or pulling our cars in or out of the driveways, the standard friendly but superficial howdys of suburban USA.
Still, it feels sad to see (or not see) a neighbor of 21 years disappear without a trace like this. To think, how many people have I lived next door to for over 21 years in my life? Not too many. In a way it feels like a part of my personal history was taken away all of a sudden.
Then I think of my other neighbors: The one across the street right opposite to our house. They have been here as long as we did, as the original home owners of this housing tract, for 23 years. What do I know about them? Even less than I know about Mr. & Mrs. C. For one thing, I don't even know their names. All I know is they have 3 kids that were all born after we moved here and now they are all grown up. And the other next door neighbor, they are probably the 3rd or 4th owner of the house, a middle-aged couple, that I once heard the husband is a school principal and I actually bought a book from him when they had a garage sale a couple years ago, with very little exchange of words, though.
So I told my wife it's time we got to know our neighbors better: Let's invite them over for a little backyard barbeque, say, over the Labor Day weekend? She used to drag her feet on proposals like this, due to her discomfort or unfounded fear of socializing with Caucasian people in pure English environment, but this time she agreed.
So I went over to my neighbors to give out the invitation. You should see the look of their face when I knocked on their door and they appeared. They all looked puzzled at first, as if wondering if they had done something wrong that I came over to report and discuss with. Once they heard my intention, though, they all relaxed and gladly accepted my invitation and asked if they need to bring anything.. I got their first names and phone numbers and even stepped into their houses for the first time.
On Sunday evening they appeared on time. Though I told them no need to bring anything, the couple next door, Joel and Paula, brought a small vase of roses picked from their own rose garden which I can see from my backyard every day. The couple across the street, Kent and Kathy, didn't come with their kids as we would like them to--the two boys were at a camp and the teen-age daughter had her own holiday plan. They toured a little of our living room and then went outside to the yard where I was finishing up my cooking at the barbeque island and sat and chatted with each other at the patio. We then ate--my wife prepared some salad (I didn't know she can make good tasty salad as she can cook good Chinese) and chow-mein and I barbequed some pre-marinated beef short ribs we bought at a Korean supermarket--and chatted under the beautiful pre-dusk sky. It turns out Joel is an elementary school principal in a neighboring city, and Kathy teaches at an elementary school just nearby our neighborhood, and Paula (Joel's wife, a retired educator herself) knew Kathy already through work but probably never gets to know each other socially like today. Kent, who me and my wife suspect is Kathy's new husband, used to work for Nortel but is now out of work, and is considering changing career path to culinary and gardening where his true passions lie..
We went inside for dessert after the meal and continued our conversation in the dining room. We talked about parental care (Joel is from Chico, a Northern California town where his 91-year-old Dad is still living in his own farm), children's education (Kathy's two boys are both computer wizards but are going to local community college and have to pay their own tuition unless they meet the grade standard Kathy sets, her 3rd kid Melanie is turning out to be a mature young woman and is considering going to medical school after high school; Joel & Paula have two grown-up sons, one is managing a restaurant business in San Francisco and the other pursuing an art career in LA), our jobs ("What's the biggest headache for an elementary school principal," I asked Joel, "The parents," he said, with a grin), and our missing neighbors (yes, everyone notices their disappearance, and according to Kathy who heard it from another neighbor, Mr. C used his house to finance a new business venture in Hawaii that went south, and as a result lost their house; they were too embarrassed to let everyone else know when they moved).
They left around 8:30. It was a pleasant little 3 hour "getting-to-know-you" party with our neighbors after living here for 23 years, finally. But better late than never, as they say. And now my wife says we should invite Kathy's 3 nice kids to dinner someday..
