A Neighbor Story

I was going to write something today about the countdown to my last show.  But then, life happened.

We moved to Lexington in the summer of 2010.  We rented a house on the south side, the area called Rosemill.  One of the things I did almost immediately is pore over the neighborhood map for a dog-walk route.  We try to walk the dogs every day - &, weather permitting, we do.

A year later, we bought a house in the Picadome neighborhood (not far from where we had been renting) & I had to come up with a new route.  This route took us across Southland into some of our old walking area, but it was near the high school where we met John.

John was a plain-spoken, skinny fellow of an older age.  I thought he was over sixty; the wife thought he might be younger.  He had a house he was literally re-building my himself.  As we walked by, he'd say hi, then he introduced himself, & then we'd stop to chat.  Our dogs came to love him, & wanted to always come up to him.  He'd climb down from his ladder, or he'd wander from over where he was chopping bamboo, & he'd take off his gloves, as our dogs would whine for him to pet them.

John told us he'd been married once.  He said he used to surf, & had spent time in Australia & Hawaii.  He still loved reading surfing magazines.  He operated a concession stand at Grand Canyon for a time.  & he worked in Lexington, where his family is from, usually in the restaurant business.  The house he constantly worked on was purchased from his parents.

He was funny, irreverent, & thoughtful.  He loved to laugh.  If we walked the dogs on summer evenings, when the sun set late, he'd be out in front of his house, chatting with the neighbors, or he'd be working on a flower bed set in the middle of the street, something he took upon himself to take care of, when it was probably the city's responsibility.

We talked about having him over for dinner.  We thought, frankly, he'd be there for as long as we lived here.  We even imagined that he'd never finish the house - the house where he, in the last couple of years, set a new porch & even raised the roof, all by himself - as that was kind of the thing he did.

I remember he was friends with one of the former hosts of WRFL's classic rock show.  He regretted missing his friend's last show, but because I was involved with WRFL, I was able to get a copy of the show & burn it to CD for him.  He was always so generous with his time, it was the least I could do.  He was a kind man.  Such a kind man.

We didn't see him much during this past winter.  Even if we could walk the dogs, it would be too cold for him to be out working on his house.  Another neighbor told us a few weeks ago that he had been diagnosed with cancer - it was very serious - John hadn't been to a doctor in years - & that he was already in hospice care.

I dedicated a song to him on my March 27th show.  His favorite band in the world was Midnight Oil.  I don't think he ever heard it - it was exactly a month ago - but I didn't expect him too.  His family had taken him in.  Another neighbor, a good friend of John's, Bill, kept us apprised of John's condition.  (We walk by Bill's house every dog walk, too.)  He saw John often, & invited us to go see him, but my wife & I never got around to it.

We never got around to it.  We never invited him over for dinner.  We never got around to that.  We thought he'd be there forever.  As long as the house needed work, John would work on it.

I found out that he died this afternoon.  I don't think he had any regrets.  He had been married once, for a short time, & it ended.  He lived simply, & alone.  But he had so many friends.  He would go to the neighbor's to watch television.  He was so friendly.  Everyone in the neighborhood knew him.  Everyone in the neighborhood was so glad they knew him.  So glad & lucky to know this man that Thoreau might have admired.

My wife & I, we're so glad we knew him.  As we talked about him, after we found out the news, she summed him up in a way he'd smile at.  She said, "He was rad."