Neighbors

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Neighbors
By Michael Lee

I was sad to hear that my neighbors are gone. Dani had a stroke and was taken off to hospital. Hopefully he’ll recover. But he and Joyce won’t be at their camp on South Twin Lake where they’ve lived for last 50 years. They didn’t waste time after Dani’s stroke and sold the place to a guy from further down the lake.

They were there when I bought my lakeside camp next door some 4 years ago. Not only were they great neighbors but have provided me with a lot of inspiration for living fully into old age. I was also in awe of their simple and happy lifestyle. I was able to celebrate their eightieth birthdays with them and always enjoyed their company along with their families and friends. They chose to make their camp their home sometime in the fifties when Dani still worked at the mill. He retired at least a decade before it downsized some five years ago. He still gets a small pension payment and social security which gave them enough to get by on if they kept life simple – and they really did.

I miss their presence and it’s lonely ‘up at camp’ now without my familiar neighbors next door. Whenever I was there hardly a day would go by without us exchanging greetings and spending a little time in each others company. I recall one such day from last winter and the adventure which followed.

“Well what do you think, Mike?” calls Joyce as I stick my head out the door around seven in the morning after over a foot of heavy wet snow had fallen overnight. Joyce is already out shoveling around the door outside of their place. She’s in pretty good shape and could easily be taken for ten to twenty years younger. Dani had been hanging tough too although recently bothered by accidents and few health problems, all of which in typical Maine fashion, he made light of.

“I don’t know Joyce,” I respond. “We could get a few more inches before it’s all over but I think I’ll get started on the plowing.” Little does Joyce know that I’ve never driven a plow truck in my life before. The previous night I visited with them after I had arrived. I had planned to spend a few days getting my place ready for summer but hadn’t anticipated the late winter extending into mid-April. There was still two feet of ice on the lake and snow drifts a good fifteen feet high around my camp. The pipe from my well was still frozen and although I had heat from a propane heater, I had no water. I’d survived for a few days like this before and it was no big deal but I had not anticipated an overnight snow storm dumping this much snow. In conversation the night before, I learned that Dani had an accident back in late February getting pinned between his plow truck and another vehicle in our shared driveway. Luckily Joyce heard his screams for help even above the sound of her vacuum cleaner, was able to back the plow truck up to get him free and then wrap his bloody legs in towels and drive him in his truck ten miles into town and to the hospital. They stitched him up and sent him home and everything seemed to be OK until one of his wounds became severely infected through to the bone. He went back for surgery and then had a vacuum inserted in the wound to help it drain and heal. “Look at this damn thing they put on me!” he said with a grin as he lifted up the tube, red with his blood, and bared his leg to show me the device.
“Geez! That must have kept you laid up for a while?” I say thinking about how they could have dealt with a Maine winter out here in the middle of no-where with not even a permanent neighbor close by.

Like me most of their neighbors are seasonal residents and stay away when the 50 knot norwesterlies blow drifting snow across the frozen lake in temperatures in double digit negatives. Dani and Joyce heat their camp with a wood burning furnace and Dani cuts and hauls the six or seven chords they need for a winter all by himself. Luckily it’s always stored away “down cellar” long before the first snows. Joyce tells me that in the last storm another year round resident from about two miles up the road came and plowed them out but they are not sure if he’s coming again after this next storm. Joyce is concerned about how I will be able to get out if the driveway isn’t plowed. “Don’t worry about me,” I tell her, “but how can I help get it done?”
“Well if you can get that god damn son of a bitch truck of mine started you can plow us out,” says Dani.
“Sure… why don’t I see if she’ll start”.
Dani gives me starting instructions. The truck is about fifteen years old and over the years has been modified by Dani every time something on it needed “fixing”. I scrape the snow from the last storm off and hit the starter. With a reluctant and sluggish sound it gives a cough and the engine springs to life. I run it a few minutes and return to tell them all is well and in the morning I’ll “plow us out”.

My oldest son Chris has done some plowing so after I get back to my camp I give him a call. “Anything I need to know about snow plowing other than just driving it with the plow down and pushing the snow away?” I ask. He laughs when I tell him what I’m planning to do but gives me a few pointers anyway.

This morning I’m excited to begin and head for the truck. She starts again just like last night. By the time I’m ready to drop the plow and begin Dani appears from his place with tube and bag slung over his shoulder. He’s not there because he’s worried about how I’ll do. Just wanting to be part of it all and help out. He advises me not to drop the plow too low for the first run and I follow his advice. What I don’t know is that the truck has very bald tires and there is a good thick layer of ice beneath the heavy wet snow. The result is that the truck doesn’t move when I drop the clutch and there I sit, truck roaring, wheels spinning, and no forward progress. By this time Dani has a shovel in hand and is ready to dig around the wheels, tube and bag still slung over his shoulder. I dismount from the truck cab and race over to grab the shovel from him which he hands over with a little reluctance and a big grin and says “OK then”.

For the next two hours or so we follow a similar routine. A little plowing, a lot of digging and sanding around the wheels to get the truck moving. A break in the routine comes when I slide the truck into a snowbank and we have to do a lot of digging. By this time Dani has found another shovel and there is no taking that away from him. Joyce observes from a distance knowing better than I that it is useless to try to talk Dani into putting down the shovel. Next thing without saying anything he climbs into the cab and decides he’ll try a little plowing himself. I look at Joyce and she just smiles and shrugs. I admire his skill in knowing just how much to rev the engine before engaging the clutch and how he gets the truck moving before lowering the plow blade. He makes a great long run up the driveway giving me a look and see lesson on how it should be done but on the reverse stalls the truck on the road. It won’t restart. “Too damned hot, goddambed truck!” he mutters as he looks for jumper cables. I’m not sure how he plans to use them as it would seem impossible to get another vehicle anywhere near the disabled plow truck parked across the access road. Just then a neighbor and his wife come driving along the road and stop where I’m waiting by the truck. ”What the hell is Dani up to now?” asks the woman. I explain.
“That man! I tell you, he’s tougher than nails!”
I nod in agreement.

The neighbor uses his truck to jump start the plow truck and I get in and continue a few more runs up and down the driveway. By now we are down to dirt in patches and it’s easier to get traction. We’re almost done when this time I stall the truck and it won’t restart. Fortunately it’s at the bottom of the driveway. “Leave the friggin thing there!” says Dani. “We as good as done anyway.” Joyce agrees reminding Dani that the visiting nurse will be coming by in a little while to check his wounds. I’m not sure she’ll make it as the access road in from the main road is awful messy. “She’ll be here all right!” says Dani. Dani retires inside and I shovel a little more before retreating to my place for cup of coffee and the removal of clothing wet on the inside from sweat and on the outside from wet snow. I notice that it is ten-thirty. How time flies when you are having fun.