I'm a copycat

I have a general rule of thumb that if someone else's post inspires a comment from me longer than 2 lines, I should probably use that for blog fodder and linky to them.

Such is the case today. Shannon's post about her neighbor reminded me of the kindest neighbor we had growing up.

We had an elderly lady who lived next door, so sweet and stuck in the 1950's. She had a bridge club, and when they played bridge, they dressed up for the occasion. Tablecloths and cloth napkin, finger sandwiches, hats and gloves - the works.

We were latch-key kids - except I regularly lost my latch-key, and we had to sit quietly in her living room until Mom came home from work.

One would think that would be boring and would give me incentive to not lose my key, but her cupboard filled with hardly used crayons and coloring books didn't exactly say "go home, you thankless brats."

She bought every overpriced Christmas decoration we sold. And when her two granddaughters would come and visit, we would spend hours playing with them with the sidewalk chalk and paper dolls. We even put on a circus with them one summer, and tried to get the fearless lioness to jump through the hoop of flames by bribing her with a piece of cheese on the other side.

(It was a little less an actual hoop of flames, and a little more a hula hoop with triangles of orange construction paper taped to it.)

(And a little less a fearless lioness, and a little more Smokey Cat)

(And it would NOT have been a circus without that fearless lioness, I assure you.)

When we got older she would invite us over to play the piano for her. In her last years she developed Lupus. That last Christmas we visited her in the nursing home and sang Christmas carols to her. We were crushed when she died the next day.

Someday, I want to be that old lady. Walk on my grass - take the pretty rocks from around my flowers - climb in my dogwood tree.