“Ka-POP!” I heard a while ago, as I will grilling some cheese sandwiches for our Sunday evening dinner. A grin spread across my face as I remembered that familiar evening sound here in the neighborhood. One evening after we first moved in, I heard a couple of loud pops that sort of sounded like a BB gun. I was pretty sure one of the neighborhood kids must be shooting squirrels. And then my husband mentioned it sounded like a small engine backfiring. Sure enough, here came the B’s, tootling up the hill on their golf cart.
For a day or two I couldn’t quite figure out their mission. They would go down the street in front of our house, up the trail on Mr. G’s property, and behind Mrs. C’s garden. It was this mysterious little trip that had me so amused, I really didn’t want to find out what it was really all about. I knew the mystique of it and the guessing game we played was far more interesting than reality would turn out to be, so I delighted in our not knowing. But as luck would have it, I happened to be standing on the front porch one evening while dinner simmered on the stove, when down they zoomed through the green grass in our side yard, across the last few feet of our driveway and back onto the street. I just took to laughing, and they glanced up and saw me up the hill on the big white porch waving at them.
Mr. B pulled the cart over and let Mrs. B out for a little jaunt up our sidewalk, holding Mrs. C’s mail. I chuckled while she told me how they bought the golf cart when their kids were younger, and now that they are gone, the golf cart needs regular use to keep it from going bad. So they just use it for their neighborhood errands. That fact alone is delightful enough–it tells of a Southern lady that takes such good care of her neighbors, she has errands to run from house to house.
After our little visit, I knew that Mrs. B was the mail lady when neighbors are gone, and that Ms. C composts grass clippings–she “saves everything”. Mrs. B let me know she would visit with Ms. C when next she saw her and would find out where she would like us to deposit our clippings for her compost pile. I was glad about that, since we had let the first round of clippings compost themselves in the B’s borrowed trashcans (the waste management company took forever getting our cans to us.) The smell was atrocious, and I was glad they had been away for a beach vacation during that little fiasco.
So now when I hear the put-put-put with an occasional “Ka-POP” of the golf cart, I look up through my kitchen window to see the B’s going out for their neighborhood stroll. I smile inside and out knowing that my neighbors are all in the good and loving care of Mrs. B.
LOVE IT!