Small Town Life

One day an 87 year old woman stopped by my place and knocked on the door. She and I had gone to dinner together a couple months ago not long after her husband passed away. She had picked me up a couple times but had not been in my little hippie house.

She walked into my place and her face lit up. She clapped her hands together and she said "This is like a doll house". We walked into each room and she looked at all the "CiCi touches" here and there and she said she would never be able to decorate like this, that she doesn't even know where to hang a picture. The smile never left her face while she was here, sitting and visiting easily. I have some pictures of my kids and grandkids around the place and she exclaimed how beautiful my family is. Can you tell I was eating this up?

A couple hours after my friend left, the woman who lives across from me called and said she and her husband had saved some mulch for me and would it be okay if she brought it over to put around the day lilies I had transplanted last year. Well duh, would I say no to that offer? She wheeled over two extra-large wheelbarrow loads of amazing mulch and scattered it around the plants that were peeping up in a row along the driveway, letting me know they are going to thrive this year in their new location. Wow.

Two days after that, another friend called me to ask if I wanted the old lawn mower she had and she brought it to me in the back of her truck. I mentioned the lawn mower to the director of the senior center and she said her uncle would probably like to take a look at it and get it running.

When I paid my car registration online I got two new license plates in the mail. I took the license plates into the senior center and held them up and one of the older gentlemen said he would put them on for me. He was able to remove the old license plate and replace it with the new one on the front, but could not remove the rusted screw holding the back license plate. I found out later that several of the men took turns with various tools trying to get that screw out. Then one day one of the men came by my house and knocked on the door to tell me he would be at my garage with some tools to work on getting out the rusted screw for me. One of my friends came by while he was out there working and she and I watched him and visited with him while he was able to remove the screw and install my license plate. 

The gal who shared her garden veggies with me last year called to ask if I was still planning on growing my own garden this year. I told her that my big garden plans were built around the fact that there were two of us last year and I have decided that it is too much for me to do this year. She said she wants me to know I will have more than enough from her garden this year and not to regret giving up the garden idea. She and I had talked a lot about gardening and she knew I was excited to have a small garden here. Nice of her to think of me.

Then the friend who got me started going to the Bingo games in the small town 15 miles away told me that she and her husband want to ask me if I want to help them with weeding their garden and I would share in all the produce this year. Gads.

On the flip side, when my lady friend's husband passed away she told me how difficult it was for her to put stamps and address labels on the thank you cards she wanted to mail out to all the well wishers and sympathy cards she received. I went to her house and did the stamps and address labels for her and helped with a few things. When my crochet friend told me their TV died I told her to have her husband come get the one that was here, I didn't use it any longer for DVD's and was only using my computer, so they took the TV.

Sharing and caring is a way of life in this town. I have many more stories about this, but you get the picture.