Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Photo by Rachel Kintla, via FB

December 28, 2012. My husband whisked me away for a romantic newlywed new year’s weekend at a pre-Airbnb BNB he found on a gay friendly website. Rustic. Beautiful. We were excited.

5 minutes into our stay, we heard the owner say something very biased. Anti-gay.

This genius bought an inn near the Forestburg Playhouse, Sullivan County’s only professional Equity musical theater. It seems fair to call him or at least his views, homophobic. And stupid. Get off rainbowroofs.com.

The room was pre-paid. With a glorious fireplace, an inviting king-sized bed and bad sheets – which made perfect sense after meeting the proprietor. We stayed, but we certainly weren’t going to hang out at the Anita Bryant Inn. Or drink the orange juice. We didn’t feel welcome, plain and simple.

My husband Matt remembered a New York Post article about a hamlet called Narrowsburg within the town of Tusten. We headed over to see it for ourselves and fell in love. 6-weeks later we owned an impulsive foreclosure. Empty for several years. Requiring significant renovation before it could be called it a fixer upper.

Basically, we bought the honeymoon house from It’s a Wonderful Life.

After buying an unexpected house, money was tight. We borrowed an air mattress, bought two Wal-Mart clearance folding camping chairs and started spending weekends in Narrowsburg. Soon, our hands were gnarled from painting after steaming 3-layers of wallpaper off cracked walls and collecting 25 bags of yard debris. We built new cats from the fur found on appliance coils and inside radiators. We replaced cat urine-soaked sub-flooring. We sanded hardwoods, vanquished field mice and fought off a ladybug infestation with an asthmatic Dust Buster.

We were having a front yard picnic to get away from the smell of Trisodium Phosphate when a passing car stopped. The driver rolled down her window.

“You’re not flippers, are you?”

“What?”

“My husband’s uncle built your house. Are you flipping it?”

“No.”

The woman smiled.  “I’m Doreen. Welcome to the Flats.”

The Flats. Our new home away from Harlem. So called because the houses are built on  low-lying areas of land alongside the Delaware River formed by sediment deposits from floods, creating alluvial plains. 

I still have no idea what alluvial plains are.

We had finally met a neighbor. Doreen, who was married to Ed. Mr. and Mrs. Kraus. Kind, sturdy, people. River folk. They’d owned their home since I was a toddler. When I learned that I easily pictured Doreen and my mom wearing matching blue quilted jackets while carrying huge purses to go grocery shopping together. Sharing coupons. Knowing which checker was quickest. Splitting a pot of coffee before going home to cook supper. Helping each other hang out laundry. They both loved a clothesline.

Ed and my dad would’ve watched football on Sundays. Gone fishing. Snuck in an occasional card game.

Had we known them our families would’ve watched fireworks and shared 4^th of July sparklers.

In the 60s and 70s when the Flats was thick with boomer babies. I could imagine Ed & Doreen getting dressed up for a rare night out at 3 Wishes Supper Club. Watching ballgames at the field between our houses. Getting older as the river flowed past their house. A front seat to watch Narrowsburg change and evolve on its way to becoming the town with which we all fell in love.

Every year Matt and I would visit their home at Christmas time to see Doreen’s Victorian village. They’d come to our parties. We’d visit during walks with our dogs Tammy Faye and Zuzu, who Doreen always mistakenly called Zulu.

When I ran for town board Ed, a former member, said “Be true to yourself.” He voted for me, which felt like winning the lottery. With his support, I won the election too.

Doreen played a Ukrainian grandmother feeding refuges in a play I directed. She was so nervous she didn’t tell her kids she was doing it. They found out when passing a show poster on Main Street.

Ed walked the neighborhood each day like a rural Guardian Angel, even after he started slowing down. Cane became walker became wheelchair became a sad afternoon at the funeral home in Barryville.

Doreen didn’t last long. A sad testament to the consequence of true love.

I had no idea the last time I saw her was the last time I’d see her.

I brought her a sandwich.

We laughed the way old friends do.

We keep pink salt in a tiny silver bowl that belonged to them. We place the flowers from our garden in a vase from their estate sale.

When their beautiful home quietly changes owners and the clothesline is gone, the Flats will still call their house “Ed and Doreen’s place.” One day there will simply be someone new in Ed’s manicured front yard.

I’ll stop by on a walk with Zulu and say, “You’re not a flipper, are you?”