(not our front yard.)
Today we added a new element to our yard: a peace pole. It came from our children’s preschool, which closed this year due to the faltering economy. The pole reads “May Peace Prevail On Earth” in four languages: English, French, Spanish and Japanese. We brought it home from the school playground last weekend–including the bell-shaped concrete footing. With a few pushes and pulls on the post hole digger this morning, we set it by our front walk. Spanish and English face the sidewalk on a forty-five-degree angle.
Just about the time we were tamping the last bit of dirt atop the footing, our neighbor parked his pickup truck alongside our fence. “Keep Honking, I’m Reloading,” reads his bumper sticker.
With our new peace pole in mind, here are a few things I’d like to say in appreciation of our neighbors.
1. They have always been kind to our children.
2. They take good care of their family members across the street.
3. When we asked them to address the fact that their dogs barked at 4 a.m., they did.
4. They have a garden in their back yard that they tend lovingly.
5. Before a fifty-year snow storm hit our town several years ago, they were the first to warn us it was coming.
6. Their grown sons have recently had children of their own. We know how hard they are working.
7. One evening over the fence we joked with them about getting suckered by infomercials. The husband confessed that in a moment of weakness, he’d bought an Esteban’s Gift of Guitar. We all laughed together in the descending light.
8. When I came home from the hospital after my second c-section, they came to check on me.
9. The wife of the couple works very hard, day and night. When I used to get up in the middle of the night with our newborn, I’d look out the window and see her letting the puppy out.
10. I know that despite our differences, if our family had an emergency, they would help us. We would do the same for them.
Postscript: Two days after this post, a 5.9 earthquake struck less than thirty miles from our home, rattling most of the East Coast. We ran with our children into the street. There we found our neighbors. Our first words to one another were “All you all right? And “Do you need help?”
Great one. This is what Obama hopes for, individuals finding common ground. Congress can’t do it. Most families with red state grandparents and blue state kids find it tough. You did it (interesting that your proclamation pole was at an angle at the time, not totally straight and erect, as if to indicate we all need to give way a bit, not expect that we have the straight and narrow, perfect and only way of seeing things, either up or down, black or white, red or blue?). I mean, we all want to proclaim sometimes, maybe, who we are and what we stand for (bumper stickers, the emphatic exclamation mark of the peace pole in the yard, the blog itself, etc.) but we reveal ourselves in our quotidian moments, the ones you captured so beautifully in your observations of your neighbors (the over-the-fence conversation, the puppy let out early in the am, the fact that you bothered to notice these things at all). Thanks for this post.
Thank you, Mary.
“We are facing an age where the politics of the world must be carried out by each individual who repeats the words “May Peace Prevail On Earth.†[It] thus becomes a great force for realizing Peace in the world.” – Peace Pole Movement Founder Masahisa Goi
Reminds me of good Hoosier values – and that their is more to a person than their bummer stickers. I also love the disclaimer on your photo!