In a Nutshell ( or How the Neighborhood Went to The Birds)
Last week we got some new neighbors, and our old ones were none to happy about it. Well, I shouldn't say that. I only know 2 of them in the first place. Perhaps I should start at the beginning.
The year is 1967, Andy Sherman, as we will call him, was a boy of only 18 years old with big dreams of killin' him some zipper-heads. Fast forward through 4 years in the jungles of Vietnam, 2 in Cambodia, and 31 deep in the heartlands of Southern Comfort and you practically know him like your own mother. Andy has long sense dropped his Christian name for simply "The Colonel". Now-a-days, the Colonel passes the days getting tossed - and I mean that in the most literal of ways - from a plethora of bars and tending to his only kin, a small schnauser named Ginger.
The year is 2005; Whippoorwill Lane is, for the most part, a quiet stretch of neighbor-hood just within the confines of town. America the Beautiful. My peaceful respite in the tree lined backyard only occasionally interrupted by the sound of Miss Sneddbecker's car puttering down the road with her trunk-load of groceries from the Sack and Save, her blue hair permed beyond recognition during her bi-weekly trip to the beauty salon where she catches up on all her small-town-turned-large gossip. This week's topic: The new neighbors and the fact that there is just something "not right" about them.
You see, the new neighbors on Whippoorwill Lane are mis-wired in any number of ways. The house down the road is now inhabited by NUT-CASES, WHACK-JOBS, WIERDOS, KOOKS, and CRAZIES!!!! The state of Texas is renting the house across the way and to the right to a group of recently released Psych-ward patients with emotional problems - they simply would not function within society and so were sent in for an emergency re-wiring, change of plugs, tug on the old battery cables. The new neighbors are under 12 hour a day state super-vision and this worries the bejeezus out of old Miss Sneddbecker and enrages old Colonel Andy.
Colonel Andy, it turns out, has been hitting the bottle again. When he realized that his next-door neighbors were a bunch of "nit-wits and loons", he decided to go over and let the "DAMN BEWROKRAT" watching over them exactly how he felt about them "driving down his property value". The least that they could do was ask before moving a bunch of NIMRODS into "his" neighborhood. 30 minutes, 3 squad cars, and a few busted windows later.....
Well, so much for my small little piece of respite in America the beautiful. Andy said that I just wouldn't understand. "Afterall", he slurred, "you're only a renter".
I guess so..."but then again", I replied, "You're just a crazy old drunk"
Well....there goes the neighborhood
The year is 1967, Andy Sherman, as we will call him, was a boy of only 18 years old with big dreams of killin' him some zipper-heads. Fast forward through 4 years in the jungles of Vietnam, 2 in Cambodia, and 31 deep in the heartlands of Southern Comfort and you practically know him like your own mother. Andy has long sense dropped his Christian name for simply "The Colonel". Now-a-days, the Colonel passes the days getting tossed - and I mean that in the most literal of ways - from a plethora of bars and tending to his only kin, a small schnauser named Ginger.
The year is 2005; Whippoorwill Lane is, for the most part, a quiet stretch of neighbor-hood just within the confines of town. America the Beautiful. My peaceful respite in the tree lined backyard only occasionally interrupted by the sound of Miss Sneddbecker's car puttering down the road with her trunk-load of groceries from the Sack and Save, her blue hair permed beyond recognition during her bi-weekly trip to the beauty salon where she catches up on all her small-town-turned-large gossip. This week's topic: The new neighbors and the fact that there is just something "not right" about them.
You see, the new neighbors on Whippoorwill Lane are mis-wired in any number of ways. The house down the road is now inhabited by NUT-CASES, WHACK-JOBS, WIERDOS, KOOKS, and CRAZIES!!!! The state of Texas is renting the house across the way and to the right to a group of recently released Psych-ward patients with emotional problems - they simply would not function within society and so were sent in for an emergency re-wiring, change of plugs, tug on the old battery cables. The new neighbors are under 12 hour a day state super-vision and this worries the bejeezus out of old Miss Sneddbecker and enrages old Colonel Andy.
Colonel Andy, it turns out, has been hitting the bottle again. When he realized that his next-door neighbors were a bunch of "nit-wits and loons", he decided to go over and let the "DAMN BEWROKRAT" watching over them exactly how he felt about them "driving down his property value". The least that they could do was ask before moving a bunch of NIMRODS into "his" neighborhood. 30 minutes, 3 squad cars, and a few busted windows later.....
Well, so much for my small little piece of respite in America the beautiful. Andy said that I just wouldn't understand. "Afterall", he slurred, "you're only a renter".
I guess so..."but then again", I replied, "You're just a crazy old drunk"
Well....there goes the neighborhood
posted by Joshua Skrobarczyk at 2:09 PM
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