Community relations

Everyone waved to everyone else in the small town of Glen Ullin, North Dakota where I grew up. It’s just what you did and was accepted as the norm. You waved to the farm kid hauling wheat to town on a hot afternoon. You waved to the old crazy lady bringing her groceries home, and you watched what seemed like a hundred cats swirl around her legs as she opened the front door. You waved to the Ag mechanic as he cussed and spit from changing a tractor tire. And you waved to the city folks as they passed by the road to your farm on the way to the lake.

So, as anyone can guess, it was quite a shock when I arrived in sunny southern California and began waving at everyone like a happy idiot. Expected? No. Accepted? Barely. Acknowledged? Rarely. The city life took the softness out of my demeanor. It gave me an edge. People were no longer inherently good, God fearing folks with 2.5 kids, a dog named Spot, and a white picket fence. They were the addicts and thieves and prostitutes and dirt of a life lead less honorably. They were the shifty eyed, suspicious, back stabbing result of a metropolitan existence.

I carried this attitude far, far from its origin in Cali and on to country after country while on MSG. It didn’t help any that I had two major altercations in both South Africa and Brazil that involved unprovoked attacks on my person. There were times when my opinion of my fellow man was nothing more that dirt on the heels of my boots, and Marines were the only ones left with any honor and decency in their bodies.

But I find myself here, in Ottawa, Canada with a new perspective on family, on human relations, and on life in general. My modest, four bedroom home is nestled snugly in a loop within a loop a comfortable distance from a busy four lane road. When I leave the hustle and bustle of rush hour traffic and on to the streets surrounding my neighborhood, that’s right, my neighborhood, I find myself surrounded by senior citizens carefully weeding flower gardens, middle aged couples hand in hand strolling down the streets in the evening breeze, and children riding shakily on new bicycles as Dad keeps a steady hand near the seat for protection. I instinctively slow my fevered pace and enter a different world of relaxation and the simple love
of life.

After so many years with eyes in the back of my head, this is a blessed reprieve. My neighbor on my right is an old man. After living there for the past six weeks, I’m ashamed to say I haven’t made the traditional visit with fruitcake in hand, but I’m the new neighbor, dammit, so it should be everyone else’s job to welcome me aboard. Okay, so that’s my polluted, hard edged way of rationalizing the situation, but I find it odd no one has stopped by say hi. Could it be because I wander around the house naked more often than not? Could it also be I come and go at all hours of the day and night? Could it be, possibly, that I’m still looking over my shoulder when I put the key in the front door, and consistently conduct a vehicle perimeter check for suspicious wires, oils, powders, or unknown substances prior to unlocking it? Simple folks are not stupid folks, and that’s where the big city way of thinking is always wrong. It’s the people in the small towns and side streets and back woods that see and hear everything that goes around them. All too often it’s the only source of conversation they have when the sun goes down and only a kerosene lamp throws a glow around the room. I’ve been in their shoes. I know their ways. I was once one of them.

Times change, and so does the verbiage. I am now considered ’situationally aware’ vice nosy and gossipy. When I peer out the corner of my window behind closed curtains at the neighbors across the street upon their return from Home Depot, I’m simply verifying that they are, indeed, normal Canadians into home improvement instead of international terrorists stocking up on fertilizer and diesel fuel. When I wave to Mom and Dad Smith walking down the street as I pass, I immediately look in my rear view mirror to see if they’re adjusting any fake wigs or mustaches or if they start talking into the cuffs of their jackets. I just don’t want to be caught off guard by some loopy bastard with a disposition for life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, so I keep my eyes peeled at all times.

I am, once again, a [semi] upstanding member of a respectable community where Billy and Sally roam free on the land and Old Man Jones still tells wars stories on his front porch.

It’s good to be part of a classic American tradition, even if I am in Canada… and a bit feared.