my neighborhood

Living in the neighborhood I grew up in, makes me notice the declining health of our long time neighbors through their holiday lights and decorations. This is the second year that my favorite house, the one with both Halloween and Christmas extravaganzas is dark. They had a vampire mannequin in their window that I waved at a few times, thinking it was the old guy standing there, before it dawned on me, statue. dork. Down the street, I've been checking on another extravagant Christmas House. My heart could not take another darkened house this year, and I've been contemplating offering to help them. They are always lit up the Friday after Thanksgiving, but nothing.  It's the middle of December.

So I hope you can sense my joy when Ollie and I came around the corner tonight and they were having a party in the street, and all of Chuck and Candy's grandkids were there, and he was yelling at them to stay off the lawn or they were going to pull out some cords, but they wanted to be in the light display too with their glowing battery powered christmas sweaters. Please papa?! pleas. But Chuck made them come out to the street with the rest of us standing in the rain (and not really minding it) and they were passing out solo cups of champagne to the people in the street, and everyone was petting Ollie, and we all counted down from 10 and then Chuck flipped his switch in a junction box at the end of three HUGE electric cords. The lights went on, people gasped and cheered and starting singing, and when the inflatable minnie mouse didn't go up right away, Chuck said, someone get me a rum and coke, and his buddy said he should have paid last year's power bill. That's when I told him how much his lights meant to me.