Tag: neighbors

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Letter to ‘The Tenant’

Sharing a lighter to keep out the cold. (Photo: Wirestock | Dreamstime.com)

I was walking home from Walgreens on the night before my birthday. I had just gone out with some friends to celebrate since I had to work on my actual birthday — a sad affair. But who can afford to miss any time at work nowadays? Plus, with my rent coming up, I especially needed all the time I could get. This morning, my building sent me a payment reminder, so the amount of $815 rang around in my head. I can thankfully afford it, but it’s been with some sacrifices here and there. Tonight was a rare occurrence for me. Usually I just stay inside and eat ramen on my weekends.

That’s when I saw you, huddled underneath the abandoned lawyer’s office awning. You and your girlfriend are sitting there with a lighter between the two of you. A blanket sanctifies your union. Next door, at the building where Lucyja Hygge used to be (before they got priced out), you both have set up another sort of home-ish situation. The patio is strewn with bed sheets, bottles, and a hot plate. There used to be chairs, but they’re gone now. 

Before Lucyja Hygge was here, this building had been an artist’s studio. The artist himself lived in the back part. When I was younger, I had hooked up with him. But that’s another story for another time. It is unrelated to you. Here is our history as I remember it. 

During Covid’s first winter, you set up shelter at my workplace. The shelter was elaborate, crafted with pure intention to keep out the cold. Blankets draped across a table. A comforter hooked onto a chair. You created a den of warmth with these simple discarded items. This lighter you hold now is a mere specter of what you once had. To what myself and others had to deconstruct and disassemble each week.

We weren’t open weekdays, just weekends. So, for a bit, we all lived in a sort of silent communion. We left you alone and you usually left us alone. Everyone was always apprehensive to ruin what you had made in the night. But we called you The Tenant in jest. We still call you The Tenant when you come in. When you do, all of us take turns telling you to leave the building. I feel like a traitor every time it’s my turn. Especially since I know your name now. It’s Gray. And I say your name when I tell you you can’t stay here. Hopefully it’s a kind enough gesture.

There’s another history with us that extends deeper than Covid though. A time before we all had to stay confined and separate and survive as best as we could. It didn’t occur to me until I got home and began writing this letter. You used to be a customer. I remember you now. I even defended you once, I think. You had a schizophrenic attack after your movie. This was back when we took cash. And that’s all you had: cash. I don’t remember the movie. It was probably any popcorn flick that anyone would go to. A Marvel movie maybe. Could have been Fast & Furious.

But this is what I remember. A lady walked up to me and said you were mumbling. She seemed frightened, so I reassured her you were harmless. That you come here all the time and don’t ever cause trouble. It seems though, trouble loves to find you. Who were you talking to that night, I wonder? Who did you see? What strange dreams plagued you then and plague you still?

It’s four or five years later now. Here you are in a new home, this abandoned rats’ alley between my apartment and the Walgreens. We’re neighbors. We’ve been neighbors. You once nodded to me in camaraderie as we passed each other by, a morning salutation with whatever drink you managed to scrounge up and hold fast to.

This is to say, I hope you stay warm and I hope you stay safe. Even if it means just a lighter and another warm body beside you, two souls who know the anger of this new world and its rising, deafening tone. I’m glad you have a companion with you to hold your hand when those demons come for you again, even if it’s in the elements.

Besides, isn’t that all any of us want at the end of the day, anyway? Another body, another soul, someone to say, “You are okay and we are safe,” even if that may not be true.

As I finish this letter, I remind myself that rent is due on the 5th. And I’d better pay it. 

William Smythe is a local writer and poet. He writes for Focus Mid-South, an LGBT+ magazine.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

“You got power?”

“You got power?”

It was the question of the week, everywhere you went, in the wake of a sneak attack from what looked like a typical line of thunderstorms last Saturday night. With little warning, winds whipped suddenly to 80-miles-an-hour-plus, and the city erupted with the sounds of popping transformers, falling limbs, and wailing sirens. The wind took a healthy piece of Memphis’ historic urban forest, knocking down more than 250 trees, most of them the great, top-heavy oaks that shade us from summer’s blaze and provide a dense canopy over our streets and lawns.

It’s little comfort to know that all of this is natural; that this is the way great trees often die, 100 years on. In a forest setting, trees are more constrained, forced to seek sunlight by growing upward. In Memphis, set on lawns with no arboreal competition, they spread their limbs far and wide, becoming the majestic behemoths we love. When they fall, the space above us they filled for decades opens to the sky.

And when they topple, they take cars and houses and memories and property values — and, of course, power lines aplenty. At the post-storm peak, Sunday morning, more than 188,000 Memphians were without power. MLGW called in 40 crews from out of town to help clear the streets and reconnect the grid. They told us it could take a week or more to hook everyone back up. That seems optimistic.

But we’ve been here before, haven’t we? We even name these things. Hurricane Elvis. The Great Ice Storm. I heard Hurricane 901 tossed around as a moniker for this one, but I don’t think anything has stuck yet.

And we know the post-storm drill: find ice; find a charger; find a cool, open bar; find a friend with that sweet, sweet electrical power. Neighborhoods have empty-the-freezer parties, sharing grills and cooking up their soon-to-be-thawed bounty. Some folks who have power run cords to their front sidewalk, inviting neighbors and passers-by to charge their devices. Local convenience stores give out free jumbo cups of ice. Eighteen-wheelers pull into parking lots and sell ice by the bag. We become a temporary third-world city.

Storm tourism abounds, as cyclists and strollers wander the neighborhoods, mouths agape at the great trees sprawled across the streets, the cars crushed like beer cans, the broken houses with rooms exposed. Social media sites are filled with pictures of the carnage. The long days resound with the growl of chainsaws and wood shredders. And soon, piles of limbs and brush line the streets, waiting for our over-worked sanitation and public works crews to haul it all away.

And then there’s the moment of glory, of relief, of resounding joy and celebration — the magical moment when the power comes back and the television and the lights and all the appliances you had on when things went dark spring to life. Huzzah! Hosanna! Hooray! You post the news to Facebook; you text your friends the sweetest words you’ll ever send …

“I got power!”

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant (August 28, 2014)

First of all, and at the risk of being an unethical journalist (a term I use loosely here), I want to say thanks for some payola. Yeah, payola, but hilarious payola. In my last column, I mentioned a Memphis company I’d just read about named Level Nine Services, a concierge company that will do anything legal for you that you want done, from driving you around in a limousine to picking up your adult diapers and delivering them to your home. So I cried out for help with the ongoing, seemingly insurmountable raccoon and gnat problems at my house. Well, they delivered something fabulous to me: a kit to help me with my problems. All assembled in a very cute cage are the things I need to rid my house of the nocturnal cat food thieves and irritating insects along with these instructions:

Leave trail of sunflower seeds (included) leading to cage (included)

Easily find hiding spot amongst the clutter (wait, L9, is the hiding spot for the cage or for me? Oh, there’s enough clutter for both; just trying to make sure I get this right)

Wait . . .

Sweat . . . (not hard in this heat in my attic, or in any other part of my house that is cooled with antique window units)

Attack raccoon (this I’m not so sure about; my ASPCA membership might get cancelled, but hey, it would save me some money every month)

Apply ointment/bandages as needed (included)

Sound horn (included) to notify neighbors of injury (there really is an air horn in the package) OR

Call Level Nine (850-0033)

Drink a cold beer (included) (and yes, it was included and cold!)

This, my friends, is marketing. And while I admit that I haven’t had time to try all of this, I did want to say thank you for the package, particularly the raccoon-print fabric with which it was lined. I might make a throw pillow out of it so that my home more resembles that of Sarah Palin. And okay, no more about your company here or it might look like I’m taking favors (pssst, send me some more stuff; I need a linen blazer that fits a portly man).

But you know, sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due. Like the new Fresh Market in Midtown. I hate that my life is so mundane that I get so excited about a new grocery store, but I am excited about the new Fresh Market, especially since I can walk to it from my house. And the people there are so friendly and they have great chicken sausages in all sorts of different flavors, and their olive bar, while a bit out of my price range, is my new friend for special occasions.

So while I am saying thanks, I’m just going to continue in that vein.

Thanks to Cookie, the lovely young woman who works at the Ballinger’s Midtown service station at Cooper and Union. Cookie is quite often the first person with whom I interact daily, when I stop to get coffee on the way to work, and she is like a ray of sunshine. Thanks, Cookie. You are the bomb.

Thanks to the students at Rhodes College, who founded and put out The Bridge every month, the newspaper written by and sold by those experiencing homelessness. And it is the only street paper in the world operated by college students. You ladies and gentlemen are awesome. Go to thememphisbridge.com for more information, including their upcoming “Under One Roof” dinner party fund-raiser, which will be held at Rhodes College on September 20th. Everyone in Memphis should support this group of young people and the hard work they are doing.

Thanks to my next-door neighbors Katie and Dani for being the best next-door neighbors in the world.

Thanks to Memphis yurt mogul Andy Cates for … well, just for being who you are.

Thanks to Congressman Steve Cohen for always doing the right thing.

Thanks to Bob Loeb and his company for all they are doing for Overton Square. I remember the good old days at the square, when they had to put a padlock on the cooler at one restaurant to keep the employees from sniffing the gas out of all the whipped cream cans to get high. Those “glory days” might be over, but Overton Square is definitely back and makes the ‘burbs appear even more boring than they already do.

Thanks to the Happy Mexican Restaurant downtown for your chicken soup. If you haven’t tried this, you must. There must be two whole chickens in it, and it comes with a cup of brown rice, a cup of really good pico de gallo, and free chips and salsa, and I think it’s either $5.95 or $6.95.

Speaking of food, thanks to Flyer writer and editor Susan Ellis for her weekly “Guess Where I’m Eating” contest, in which she posts photos of food and/or little restaurant images and receives probably 1.2 million emails each week from potential winners, who get gift certificates if they are the first to email her with the correct answer. I’m probably disqualified from ever winning since I write for this paper, but we have fun emailing each other back and forth about it.

Finally, thanks to all those who “endorse” or “recommend” me on the social media networking site LinkedIn. I rarely know who you are, but thanks. I endorse you all back here and now. And now I have a date with an air horn.

Categories
Living Spaces Real Estate

In Focus

Q: What do people who live in high-rise
condos, townhouses, urban bungalows,
suburban homes, zero-lot-line neighborhoods or on 10-acre farms all have in common?

A: The guy next door.

No matter where you hang your hat, you’ve got to contend with neighbors, especially if you own your living space. Ownership means membership — in your community, in your neighborhood, on your street, in your building, or on your floor — and membership means responsibility: responsibility to hold the line on your neighborhood’s curb appeal and responsibility to make nicey-nice with the folks who live nearby. What that level of responsibility entails depends on you, but a lot of it depends on your neighbors.

How involved you are will go a long way in defining your standing in the neighborhood. Here’s a primer on one of the vital aspects of the exciting world of being alive: neighbors. (And let me take this moment to say how much I like my own neighbors — especially the ones who might be reading this — and to say I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have them in my life.)

The Arms Race

This option is only for those born to neighbor and who long to win at the endeavor. When Jimmy down the street gets the latest self-propelled lawnmower, you get a riding mower. When Pam brings fried chicken to the street potluck, you bring pheasant.

PRO: No one will ever badmouth the appearance of your property. CONS: It’s hard to make friends, and, with escalation, there’ll undoubtedly be some casualties along the way.

The Importance of Being Earnest

No other single factor is as necessary in keeping your neighbors happy as giving the appearance that you care — that you care about your yard and exterior spaces and improvements inside and that you’re invested in the upkeep of your place. And, just as importantly, that you care what your neighbors think. Of course, it helps if you really do care. But it’s not enough alone. You’ve got to wave your flag and remind everybody, lest they forget, that you’re just as committed as they.

PROS: Keeps everybody on an even keel, and it’s easier to get to actually know people rather than just the value of their belongings. CON: You’re following the crowd rather than leading the charge.

Safety in Numbers

Short of equaling your neighbors’ zeal, you must at least not be the weakest link in your neighborhood. Treat it as a law of the jungle: You don’t have to be the fastest gazelle; you just can’t be the slowest. It’s action with due diligence rather than with all diligence. It’s procrastinating bringing your trashcan in but not being the last yahoo on the street with it still on the curb.

PRO: Frees you up for couch time in front of the tube or goofing off online. CON: It hits you in the bottom line: your own property value.

Your guiding principle in dealing with neighbors should be the Golden Rule: Do unto others’ property values and opinions as you would have them do unto yours. Ask yourself, What Would My Neighbor Do — WWMND? Take a long view at being neighborly, doing what’s going to serve you best and make you happiest over the course of a 15-year or 30-year mortgage. And if you ever live near me, remember: I love homemade ice cream and am not above being bribed. ■

greg@memphisflyer.com