Neighbors

Among the gifts Don and Karen Simons bestowed on me when I moved to San Diego was a great big jungle plant with great big leaves. It's on the balcony along with the rest of the flora that's somehow surviving my unintentionally lethal black thumb. One of the great big leaves had enough of my alleged care, and it up and died.  Then it fell off and landed on the neighbor's balcony below mine when I pruned it.  I thought I better retrieve it to avoid having the neighbor think I was letting my jungle shed plant stuff on his or her property.  Wars have started over less.  Down I went and rang the doorbell.  A half-nekkid short guy whose muscles had muscles and whose muscles had tattoos answered the door and triggered my o shit alarm.  I explained my mission, saying I was there to retrieve a zombie leaf that had landed on his balcony.  He just waved me off with a smile and said he'd get rid of it himself.

I'm thankful to have an agreeable neighbor. Years ago I heard a radio preacher (I had the Sunday morning shift at a station on the north coast) say that God was trying to convert a non-believer whose name I've forgotten.  As usual, the Almighty made threats of plagues, pestilence, rains of toads, etc., but the sinner remained  unmoved.  Then God played His ace in the hole, His holy hole card.  He threatened the sinner with bad neighbors.  That tore it.  The sinner converted right there on the spot.

 

I liked that Sunday morning gig.  Not much to do.  Lotta recorded religious programs including that awful overblown Mormon Snaberwackle Choir.  My relief at noon was Dean Elliot. 

 

I've written about Dean;  AB, MA, Hamilton College; Ph.D, Northwestern; Phi Beta Kappa, OSS service in WW2;  polyglot linguist, musicologist and godson of Rudyard Kipling.  How he wound up as a $500 a month engineer and record spinner at a small station in a minor market is another story.  He was in his 60s when I knew him.

 

Dean was not happy about having to pull a record shift.  He'd show up wearing a surly attitude, a  Beethoven sweatshirt, and carrying a shopping bag.  The bag contained a 40-ounce bottle of Rainier Ale, a bag of Fritos and the current edition of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.  It was best not to talk to Dean then.  Just brief him about any tech problems, but otherwise keep quiet, wear beige and get lost.

 

There was a live broadcast on Dean's shift, a  Pentacostal preacher bought an hour of time to preach the gospel and raise money.  He  was especially moved  by the Holy Spirit one day,  pounding the table below the microphone while telling the tale of his conversion. "There I was in the  wilderness of sin BLAM! Then something happened to me BLAM!" Each blam caused the transmitter meters to spike, and Dean to get increasingly annoyed.  "But THEN, brothers and sisters BLAM, something happened to me! Yes!  BLAM.  Do  you KNOW what happened to me? BLAM BLAM BLAM."

 

At that point Dean was thoroughly miffed.  He opened the control room microphone and asked, "You ran out of money?"   

 

Well, there was a quite a contretemps in our little studio that day, let me tell you!    The preacher complained to the station owner in a stuttering rage. But the owner, a nice and long suffering man, could only let Dean go at the risk of the station's financial and technical peril.  Dean had made many modifications to the ancient Collins transmitter --  but kept the plans in his head.  Upshot:  No more live religious broadcasts on Sunday.  All records and tapes.  We even taped the pastor's sermon when Dean wasn't around, and Dean kept his job.

Now if I can just figure out how to resurrect dead plants.  Maybe I should find a Pentacostal pastor and get some resurrection lessons, but then, the pastor would see what an unrepentant sinner I am and want to water me in a San Diego Bay baptismal ceremony.  Well, maybe then I could empathize with the plants I water. Throw in some scented bubble bath or something. But until then I'll remain a comfortably dry atheist, thank you.     

 

-o0o-

Comments? E-mail tomatomike@aol.com.

Loved this, thanks for sharing. – Julisari

Enjoyed that. As usual. – Ldywrtr0

I envy your sentence structure.  So very readable!  -- Galen

Aw shucks, lady.  High praise indeed from a published author and world renown academic. -- MB

I am not so sure what to call myself in the belief department - I mean, if I have to have a label.  I do know that I can keep my assorted balcony flowers alive all spring and summer every year, but if I bring a house plant here, it dies as soon as I shut the front door.  "Oh, this variety will grow ANYWHERE" I have been told while accepting a clipping of something or other, and no matter where I set it or what it's in, it wilts, it yellows, and then it dies.  If it could, it would have screamed "Don't leave me here!"  I am not sure, but I think there might be some sort of analogy here.  Do yo suppose God just comes around every so often to watch me through the sliding glass doors, knowing full well I'm messin' up in here?   I love your writing, always, always.  I hadn't received any for a long time, and I was starting to get the shakes.  <smile>  -- Zoey

Not that I'm an expert, but I must say, this was one of your better pieces. Have you been practicing? Well done! Whoo whoo! – Beatsyr

Quite the opposite.  I've been a sloth.  That's why I had to edit and re-edit the piece, even after initially posting.  So thank you.  -- MB

Laughed out loud, Mike.  -- Thea