Like a Good Neighbor

From time to time on this blog, I'll be writing stories about how crazy and rude and obnoxious and disgusting my neighbors are. Making fun of them and proving my own superiority, I'll tell tales that will make them look like hillbillies, rednecks, and white trash. Those stories will also be valid but today I want to share an example of good, old-fashioned country neighborliness.

I've been fortunate in the last week while our area has been inundated with heavy snows and icy roads - I have been on vacation and haven't had to be anywhere at any specific time. Arnie has also been lucky in that he and his staff agreed that, given inclement weather and bad driving conditions, they could all work as effectively from home as they could from their office in the wilderness. So, other than an occasional trip to the nearest store for more provisions (that usually means wine and a few food items at our house), one trip to the neurologist, a little Christmas shopping, and the gift exchange with my family, we have not needed to go anywhere.

Then, it was Sunday morning and I realized we were going to have to get serious. To our credit, it really hasn't made any sense to try to shovel the driveway or do much more than keep one car accessible and ready to roll - until the past 24 hours, it has been a constant snowstorm, adding inches to the accumulation every time we turned around. Yesterday, it started raining and raining and raining. You'd think the rain would start melting the snow and I suppose it has but not so much that you could look out the window and see a lot of difference.

Anyway, rather than praying for the rain to melt the snow enough so we could get both cars out, we decided to hike to the top of the road and start digging in hopes of getting the Cadillac unburied to the place that we could drive it. I'm not exaggerating when I say that there was a pile of 2 feet of snow on the top of the car and that the giant pile of snow that had slid off the car was higher than the wheelcaps. So, we started digging and digging. And I must say that snow doesn't exactly bring out the best in me or Arnie, so there was a little bickering and disagreeing along the way, which wasn't making the task at hand any more enjoyable.

Then, around the corner, not unlike Santa Claus and his sleigh, came Mike Rainey and his John Deere tractor, complete with a front-end plow and rear-end grader, cruising up and down
East Evans Creek Rd. looking for couples in distress such as ourselves. Mike and his wife Bobbie, along with their daughter Chloe and son-in-law Travis, run the closest thing to civilization (11 miles away) otherwise known as Rainey's Market. Travis and his family grew up on Evans Creek, and Chloe moved in a few years ago, so the two of them are relatively old hands at this neck of the woods, even though all old timers in the neighborhood agree that the last 3-4 years have been especially harsh winters unlike anyone can remember. That could be age and Alzheimer's setting in, selective memory, the truth of the matter, or some combination thereof.

Anyway, Mike and Bobbie just bought one of the original homesteads on the creek this summer so are enjoying their first winter living out here. And yes, they are definitely enjoying it! I've come to realize that there are snow people and there are sun people. The Rainey's are snow people; Arnie and I are sun people. Mike, and I can't say this with enough gratitude, respect, and appreciation, drives up in the tractor in shorts and a t-shirt. "Anything I can do to help?" he hails. My family humor and bad judgment entices me to ask where his clothes are, as we are both bundled head to toe in every single piece of winter clothing we own. Just one little ray of sunshine, please!!!

After 45 minutes of moving cars, dumpsters, snow shovels, and mountains of snow, Mike saw us to bare gravel with enough room to park both cars and room to walk between each. With a giant grin on his face, he asked if we wanted him to plow the whole road. I shook his hand and said we just couldn't thank him enough for clearing the top of the driveway and that this was more than we could have hoped for. Is there a protocol for this type of neighborliness? Should I have whipped out my wallet and handed him a crisp $100 bill (oh, there wasn't one of those in there anyway)? If I were a good woman, would I have come straight home and whipped up an apple pie for him and Bobbie? Or is it enough to know that I've shopped at there store since they bought it from the previous owners in the '70's? That Arnie, my mom, and I walked from our place to Chloe and Travis' wedding at his family's house? That we're all part of a family of people who have chosen to live in this particular area of the county and that one day we'll help them with something? Are we indebted to them or was this payback for the thousands of dollars of groceries, gas, hardware, and garden supplies we've purchased lo these many years?

I guess popping a thank you card in the mail can't hurt anything.