Neighbors

We have lived here for over 30 years. We were the first ones on the block. It was interesting that I finally got to know the neighbor that lives on our corner just within the last year.

I thought they were from New Jersey. I was wrong they are from Rhode Island. The moved on our block two years after we moved here. I found out that she loved nectarines but did not like peaches. Luckily I have a dwarf nectarine in my front yard. I try to pick some nice ones for her every year and put them on her front porch.

She loves to work out in her yard on comfortable days. She thinks that it is funny that she is out their pulling weeds in the front of her perennial flower mound while he is inside punching keys on a computer. She said,"I just cannot trust him to do this, he might be pulling up the plants instead of the weeds."

Her husband is over 85. He is tall lanky man with with a solid gait in his walk. He used to play golf in his retirement every day at the golf and country club. When he turned 85 he decided that he would give up of the sport. Even at 85 he was carrying his own golf clubs throughout the 18 holes and walking the length of the course.  His wife attributes his good health to his walking every day an a cosmopolitan every night before dinner. His friends at the golf club could not understand why he would give it up when he was able to walk the walk and stroke the club. He was determined.

His wife told me that he started off working in middle management in RI for a tire manufactoring company, Us rubber.. or something like that. His wife was very close to her sister. They both grew up in Rhode Island. Her sister followed her husband out to Merced to be an Air Force wife. My neighbor was the youngest in the family. They lost their mother when this woman was very young. Her sister served as the mother to this woman. She felt abandoned when her sister came to California. The sister opened and ran successfully two restaurants in Merced after her husband retired from the Air Force. Her sister and her husband are both gone now.

They came out to visit their  relatives in Merced for a couple of weeks from RI. When they got back, the younger sister missed her older sister so much that they decided to move to Merced within 3 weeks. The husband said that with his business experience in middle management for the tire company that he did not think that he would have difficulty finding a good job in Merced.

He was right. He found a very good job in Merced with Farmer's Insurance who had regional offices here. He worked there and made a good enough living that they bought a house and then parlayed it to a nicer section of town (our block). He retired when he turned 61. They have always had a comfortable lifestyle in Merced. She said that she would like to visit the East coast sometime but was not interested in doing a plane trip again.

I often cross him in my walks in the early morning. He chides me when I am "late" which is really funny. He is finishing his walk at 8:30 and sometimes I am just starting my walk at that time. Such are the joys of both of our retirements.