A Nice Quiet Neigborhood

One of these days,  I am going to move in to a nice, quiet neighborhood. I thought that my current house was in one of them.  Most of the residents are over the age of 65,  and the house is situated  on the 4th fairway of an old golf course. A nicely shaded canopy of oak trees stand tall and strong around the house, and protect it from the sizzling hot Florida sun.  I remember giving the realtor my final bid on the home,  as a nice cool breeze came from across the golf course and helped to simmer the sunburn on my face. This is it!   Finally. A nice,.. quiet ..neighborhood.

Fantasy prevailed during the first few weeks in the home. The wailing air horn from the train tracks less than a block away...could not dent this dream.  "Cool!",  ...we thought,  and we began to chart the schedule of the airhorn blasts.  3pm.  7pm.  4am.  738am. 11pm. 930pm.  So what if there was no rhyme or reason.   It's a choo-choo train!

Birds are happy near a golf course.  I think maybe,  extra happy.  Once the hoot owl stops his early morning mating call, all the other songbirds begin to announce Mr. Sun's arrival!  Tweet tweet!  Fweeee....fweeeeeee ...fwe-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-T!  Fwee ...fweee....fwe-e-e-e-e-e-T.  Aha!  This one wants a honey.  I smiled and slowly brang the pillow over my head to muffle his  desperate calls for a mate. An hour later,  I am thinking .."Won't some beautiful female bird PLEASE answer this poor guy??!!   I'm sure he has more than feathers  to offer,  and will give you his love for a song.

Early morning joggers start making their healthful journey down our street right as the sun rises. If you listen real hard,  you can hear cadence in their pace as they make their way. "Chiffa chiffa chiffa chiffa"....  And then,  the dogs start barking.  First,  the neighbor's pomeranian a half-block away. And then... the big dogs who live right next door!  It's a neighborhood howl-fest at 630 am!  But its okay. The joggers have passed and the sun has risen. Things will quiet down now...

Dammit!!   F@#k!  F@$k!  F#$K!   Peece of F#$kin' S@#T!   You WHore!   God Blessit!
Nope...no quiet time yet.  Golfers appear on the golf course at the crack of dawn...and curse the spiritual forces that have made them swing so errantly.    " But maybe I will find a few extra golf balls in the tall grass of my back yard",  I think to myself.

Enter:  The Chainsaws!  Every Florida resident knows that yard work needs to be done before the sun gets too high. The golf-course trees that lightning struck last summer,  are now leaning ominously towards the homes here,  as hurricane season reaches it's peak. I can't really blame them for removing the threat of a huge oak tree falling on their house. They don't know it's my day off...

Every home on the block but mine, can afford a landscaper.  These guys are Pros!  Before 9am and in a  matter of 45 minutes,  they can mow, power-hedge, edge, and leaf-blow an entire property!. Why every house has a different landscape company,  I do not know.  That's just the way it works around here, I guess...

Tony,  45 year old male  biker and the youngest guy on the block....has already gone to Dunkin' Donuts, drank his coffee and read his newspaper. The 9am sun seems like the perfect time to wash his new Dodge Charger.  But not without a little AC/DC  and Black Sabbath to help distract from the pain of rubbing in  that hard shell coat of wax.    " Roarin' thunder...pourin' rain!   I'm comin' a-a-a-wn like a Hurr-i-CANE!   ".   Tony can sing, too!

Gertrude, blue-haired retired school teacher from down the street,  took the time last week to rent a power washer...and power-washed her entire driveway in a day!  It looks great!  But....you know where this is going.  Every neighbor in the hood has looked upon her driveway with a sinful envy all week long. Her grass may be greener...but they'll be damned if she's gonna have the shiniest driveway too!  It's power washer weekend this month.  The gas kind.  With inadequate mufflers..

So,  I roll out of bed and decide to join these neighbors...who at 65 years old have more 'early morning energy'  than I can give in an entire weekend. I make my way out to the mailbox to deposit some late credit card bills.  There is a note taped to the mailbox.  "Please!  Feed your CAT!!  I am tired of feeding it every day and it comes to my house EVERY DAY!  It is RUDE! "
I shake my head....and look around to see who might be peering from behind the curtains across the street. The typewritten note has no name or  signature, so I guess they wanted to remain anonymous. Now,  even without all of the bustling sounds of the mornings in my neighborhood, I will still hear an incessant bitching louder than Hell's Bells  in my head from the anonymous note.

.....The lawn-spraying bug guy pulls up next to me at the mailbox and begins to ask if I   " need some help with my patch of weeds".  I just uncan a small smile and tell him  "No, thank you."...  and slowly turn to make my way back to the house ..in my... " nice,.. quiet.. neighborhood".