It is always interesting to me how old memories just appear inside my head. Long about 1980 we lived in Escondido, Ca. There was a wooden privacy fence that surrounded each of the houses in the neighborhood.
We had elderly people living on both sides of us. One side was George and Mary, as nice a couple as I ever met. George started out working in a coal mine. He knew he did not want to get old working in the mine and end up being a broken old man with coal dust in his lungs. He knew a little about cars, he said, "not much, but a little more that the guys he worked with." George opened his own garage and did well. Well enough to get him to California when he retired.
On the other side was Ms. Mina. She was obsessive, depressive, with more than a little touch of crazy. I tried my best to be nice to her and build a freindship, but that was impossible. Whenever I was sent over to Carlsbad Ca. to work I would stop at the tomato stands on my way home (best tomatoes ever) I would buy a bushel and share them with our two neighbors. We had a tree in front of our house that dropped its leaves in the fall. She made a point of being out in her front yard raking leaves when I came home from work. She would complain to me every day about them. It was fall and those things happen. She started calling me on the phone at night telling me to call the city to have them trim all the branches. I finally called the city and the man on the line interrupted me as I was asking him to trim the tree and he said, "you must live next to Mina." I said I did and he said, "she calls us every week about that tree." I finally had our daughter rake any and all leaves every day when she got home from school, but even that did not satisfy Mina because she had to look at the leaves until our daughter got home from school. One day Joyce and I were walking down the street to the 7/11 for cigarettes and there was Mina lying in the street. We stopped to help her up and walk her home. As I raised her up she would not even let us walk her home. Her doctor had changed her meds and it had a bad effect on her. One winter we had some tremendous rains for southern Ca. and the combination of wind and rain snapped the upright post between her and us. The fence was sagging between our yards. I looked out the back window and there was Mina in a wheelchair with an old 2x4 trying to prop up the fence in the wind and rain. I intended to replace the post when the rain stopped, but it just wasn't stopping. I had a new post in the garage, but wasn't going to try to replace it during a storm. Mina must have called her son in law about it.
Her son in law was Hugo Hoy (no one famous, his name popped into my head yesterday after 38 years and that name prompted this post) Hugo was a nice old guy and one day he knocked on our door, introduced himself and asked if he could pay me to fix the fence. I told him I was ready as soon as the rain stopped and there was no need to pay me. Hugo is no doubt a saint in heaven these days. Not only did he have to care for Mina with her Alzheimer's and dementia, he was married to Mina's daughter who also had Alzheimer's and dementia. I do not know how he kept his sanity, but he did and was a nice guy.
We had elderly people living on both sides of us. One side was George and Mary, as nice a couple as I ever met. George started out working in a coal mine. He knew he did not want to get old working in the mine and end up being a broken old man with coal dust in his lungs. He knew a little about cars, he said, "not much, but a little more that the guys he worked with." George opened his own garage and did well. Well enough to get him to California when he retired.
On the other side was Ms. Mina. She was obsessive, depressive, with more than a little touch of crazy. I tried my best to be nice to her and build a freindship, but that was impossible. Whenever I was sent over to Carlsbad Ca. to work I would stop at the tomato stands on my way home (best tomatoes ever) I would buy a bushel and share them with our two neighbors. We had a tree in front of our house that dropped its leaves in the fall. She made a point of being out in her front yard raking leaves when I came home from work. She would complain to me every day about them. It was fall and those things happen. She started calling me on the phone at night telling me to call the city to have them trim all the branches. I finally called the city and the man on the line interrupted me as I was asking him to trim the tree and he said, "you must live next to Mina." I said I did and he said, "she calls us every week about that tree." I finally had our daughter rake any and all leaves every day when she got home from school, but even that did not satisfy Mina because she had to look at the leaves until our daughter got home from school. One day Joyce and I were walking down the street to the 7/11 for cigarettes and there was Mina lying in the street. We stopped to help her up and walk her home. As I raised her up she would not even let us walk her home. Her doctor had changed her meds and it had a bad effect on her. One winter we had some tremendous rains for southern Ca. and the combination of wind and rain snapped the upright post between her and us. The fence was sagging between our yards. I looked out the back window and there was Mina in a wheelchair with an old 2x4 trying to prop up the fence in the wind and rain. I intended to replace the post when the rain stopped, but it just wasn't stopping. I had a new post in the garage, but wasn't going to try to replace it during a storm. Mina must have called her son in law about it.
Her son in law was Hugo Hoy (no one famous, his name popped into my head yesterday after 38 years and that name prompted this post) Hugo was a nice old guy and one day he knocked on our door, introduced himself and asked if he could pay me to fix the fence. I told him I was ready as soon as the rain stopped and there was no need to pay me. Hugo is no doubt a saint in heaven these days. Not only did he have to care for Mina with her Alzheimer's and dementia, he was married to Mina's daughter who also had Alzheimer's and dementia. I do not know how he kept his sanity, but he did and was a nice guy.
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