Just a cruel old bitch...is what I say

See life in the South manifest in wild and weird ways,
all written down for all to read...

My wonderful life as a blogger is exactly what I want it to be. I have a forum to prevaricate and tell the truth too...to whom I now decide to write about, their names shall be changed, but should they decide to read, they will know of what I speak.

Have you ever known real harassment? Harassment to a degree, that you have to leave your home behind, because a neighbor can not stay out of your life? Have you ever not been able to satisfy their demands of the a glistening yard full of grass...the mowing kind, not the smoking kind?

For more than 25 years, my life, that of my parents, and fiance became the bane of my wonderful neurotic neighbor's, The Andy Georges (note not the correct name).

When I was growing up, Daddy would come home on Friday, after a long week on the road...one of his company's top salesmen. He would be tired, but not so much so to want to cook out on the grill...and he could cook!

Several years of cooking out, the Andy George's asked if he would not cook out on Friday night, as they, being Catholic, and not allowed to eat meat on Fridays; Well it offended them.

Oh, pooo nanny poo poo.

Being the good neighbor that he was, Daddy obliged. Rather than cook steaks, he would buy rainbow trout in Arkansas, bring it home and cook it instead.

When Dad brought me a Great Dane, and he grew up into a small pony, Mrs. Andy George would call her neighbors, a ritual she perfected over the years, complaining about Duke turning over their trash cans.

NOT!

Two weeks after we moved him to south Mississippi, to a veterinarian friend of the family, she called to complain again...well, you should have heard my mother tell her that he had been gone for two weeks, which I thought had shut her up...

NOT!

I had been gone for several years, married, my father's death, my divorce and returning home when Mother had a heart attack.

When I began dating my husband of 25 years, Mrs. Andy George would call my mother asking when we would be getting married.

When speaking with an attorney friend of ours, Mrs. Andy George stuck her head over her fence and said, "Your Daddy would just die if he could see the yard now."

To which I replied, "I believe that is what killed him."

You see, 3 days before he passed, he went through the yard, cutting back all the shrubs, that he had meticulously manicured for nearly thirty years, to the stumps. Mother went outside and asked him what he was doing and he said he was just tired of taking care of it all...three days later, he was gone.

Well, true enough, Mother and I didn't keep the yard in pristine condition. Hell, the "yardman" burned up a brand new $400 mower, as he didn't realize you needed to mix the oil and gas. Duh....

And when you have to work three jobs just to keep the roof over your head, a disabled mother; there was just more important things on my mind vs. Mrs. Andy George's concerns about "yardwork".

The assault has not ceased. When the city's electric company sent a surge through our line into the house, causing a house fire, did she call us? No, but she did call one of our other neighbor's to let them know. Did she call the fire department? No! Our neighbor did. A week or so later, the city came and replaced the faulty light pole that had broken in the back yard.

When the neighbors on the opposite side of us sold the house, and the new neighbors moved in, we knew we would have more trouble as Mrs. Andy George made them her new best friends as she had so many of the others.

When the George's held a 50 year high school reunion party at their home, they both would lead their guests to the edge of their yard, telling them of their woes, having us as neighbors. Folks this is about our yard...not that we were filthy, loud and rude neighbors.

I hold two Master Gardener certifications from both Mississippi and Arkansas, a member of the state Landscape Critic's Council and certification with the National Backyard Wildlife Habitat Program.

"You need to cut down some of those trees," she would say.

Of course two of those trees, a fig and a quince, my parents allowed her to plant, as she didn't have the room in her yard.

Just a cruel old bitch. is what I say.

Scores - Whores - And More

I could take a line from Dickens and say "It was the worst of times..."

As far as I was concerned, being raised in a little back water town in the Mississippi Delta, anything that transpired did nothing for my morale, self-esteem or credentials.

Raised in an "exclusive" neighborhood, I just didn't fit in, nor did I really care to.

As anyone with half-a-brain could recognize, that if it rained, the headlines in the OBITS read the next day, "Miss Sassafras Ass Anderson just drowned after entertaining The Deltamelta Garden Club in her back acre yesterday at noon. Her cook had made a concoction of peppermint, looseleaf chicory and a smattering of Drambuie. I know it sounds horrible, but these LOL's loved to find a reason to drink. But again when Miss Ass showed her ass, and died, it was the slightest drizzle that caused her to drown at her own party.

But hell, if the truth be known, she began spouting epithets about Geannie Brand's husband and his illicit affair with Elnora, his suckatary for 10 years.

However, Ms. Brand was absent from the garden affair as she was called away to her sister's in Bathpitts, MS. Seems her sister's husband had just been arrested for beating the crap out of 'Sister' when his crop failed.

Most of the inhabitants of this little part of hell were wannabees anyway.

It was a competition that they do their level best to keep up with the Smythes next door, who defined debt, divorce and unheard of perversions.

But once again, I get ahead of myself as I need to provide you with a little background so you can understand my reasoning.

Children ran wild in our little corner of pathogenic paradise. Noting my sarcastic tone, you can well imagine that I was not now impressed, nor ever would be.

A warm and fuzzy feeling just comes all over me when I see one neighbor, who constantly fondled himself, while we children played basketball in his driveway. I would love to shoot the old pervert.

When I told my father, he forbade me to play with his daughter or son anymore.

The neighborhood was full of perverts. Around the corner and three houses down, was a prominent doctor who came home early one day and found his lovely wife getting it on with her tennis partner and best friend. Can you spell divorce?

The children of the marriage were adopted and stayed with their father while the mother disappeared into the sunset.

The daughter is still weird to this day, and why not? No telling what she was exposed to or what she turned out to be. No one ever heard from her after she was sent off to boarding school.

In the opposite direction was a farmer whose two sons were queer. I am not talking about gay queer, although they both turned out that way.

They just behaved queer, even as young as 10 and 12 years of age. One of their best friends, who lived in the old part of town, and would grow up to be a Congressman, was queer too. I was told that they all suffered with bouts of depression because of the sexual immorality they were exposed to in their own homes.

I've still yet to figure out why there were so many gays in the population in the Delta. Most of the writers from the Delta were gay.

Was it because the women just wouldn't give it up? Shoot, I know too many that did and would at a flip of a coin.

Many a car dealer sold too many sports cars to secretaries, who if ridden and put it up wet, well the smell of sex was etched in the back seat forever.

How did I know? I had to ride in the back seat all too many times when part of her job description was to ferry the children home after school...The sweet smell of sex was embedded in the car, no pun intended.

Also located in this exclusive neighborhood, was Parking Road. As the fertile plantation land was being divided and sold for a new developments, the old farm roads were used for adventure.

Sex was being had on the concrete pads in unfinished houses. Many of the participants were from the families that were building the very house. I suppose it was their way of initiating the building.

What was truly funny was finding out that one of the parents was having this lurid affair in the newly build property and the son coming in to discover the couple with his girlfriend on his sleeve.

One attorney's home was set on fire after the wife found he and the mistress doing the wild fandango on her newly laid antique pine flooring.

That's one way of being laid...Southern Pine style.