Love Thy Neighbor.............

I have a story I can tell now.  We live on a fairly nice street.  Our subdivision is an old one, one of the oldest in our town; and we live in the oldest part of it.  Our house was built in 1974, so we've had our fixing-up to do on it.  But we have a very big yard and there are big, old trees all along our street, including in our yard.  A lot of our neighbors have lived on this street for 30 years.  So all in all, it's a pretty good street to live on.

We are good neighbors.  We clear snow from the drives and walks of our older neighbors, look out for their homes when they're away, keep an eye on their kids when they're outside playing, mow their yards and trim their easements, even spraying for mosquitoes!  Our kids are good kids and we keep our dogs in our own yard.

But we have this one neighbor I'll call "J."  "J" moved in a few years ago, three houses down from us, with his wife or girlfriend or whatever she is.  J may be in his forties.  He could be close to sixty.  It's hard to tell.  He has long, silver hair that he pulls back in a pony tail, thick lensed glasses, several teeth missing, and he looks like he's led a hard life (probably on purpose).  When J first moved in he began walking his two young Rottweilers all around the neighborhood, stopping to chat with his new neighbors.  He stopped to chat with us one day.  We introduced ourselves and welcomed him to the neighborhood.  I petted his dogs and asked about their ages.  They were very well-behaved dogs, and you could tell he cared well for them.

I never had anything specific against J.  But he did have annoying habits, like letting his dogs step into my front yard when he stopped to chat; sometimes letting them relieve themselves there.  He didn't watch his language around me or my kids, but I really didn't rate his intelligence or his upbringing very highly, so I let it go.  I never paused to talk with him, anyway, unless Thomas was there with me.  Then I'd be civil.

Last summer he crossed the line.  Eler Beth was walking our beagle, Heidi, on a leash back from her friend's house.  Heidi pulled the leash from her hand and ran ahead of her down the sidewalk toward our home.  Just past J's house she stopped and Eler Beth caught up with her.  J stepped out of his house with his dogs who started barking at Heidi.  Heidi started into their yard barking back, but Eler Beth pulled her away.  J yelled at my daughter that she'd better "keep that d----- dog on a leash"  or he'd sic his dogs on her.  I don't know if he meant Eler Beth or Heidi.  Eler Beth ran home and told me.  She was very upset.  When Thomas got home we told him and he went down to talk to J.  He wouldn't come to the door.  Their car was in the drive and the dogs were in the back yard, but no one came to the door.  Well Thomas decided he'd better report it, so he called the sheriff.  We had an idea that maybe he'd been drinking and was now passed out.  The deputy couldn't get anyone to come to the door either, but he made a report and apparently the prosecutor called J into his office.  The deputy told us in a few days that he had denied saying that to our daughter and that he said our dog hadn't been on a leash.  Of course there was no proof either way, just our word against his and vice versa, but the prosecutor warned J about making threats and about letting his dogs run out into his front yard which is not fenced.  He also suggested that Eler Beth not walk our dogs past J's house if she could help it, and to make sure the dog was on a leash at all times.   A few days later J put up a three-foot-high plastic picket fence in his front yard.  (Which, I found out, apparently constitutes a legal enclosure.)

Apparently J carries a grudge.  He has not stopped to chat with us since.  (boo hoo)  And he has been going around the neighborhood trying to stir the neighbors up against us.  On Friday, October 29, Thomas was in the back yard doing something, and when he came out of the back yard and onto our driveway Eler Beth's Beagle pup, Bruin, ran out with him.  J just happened to be walking down the sidewalk at that time, and Bruin, being a happy, bouncing, puppy, ran straight for J, looking for some attention.  Before Thomas or Eler Beth could do anything more than call the pup's name, J stepped INTO OUR YARD and kicked Bruin in the side of the head.  Our immediate next door neighbor happened to witness the whole thing and he said that Bruin staggered in circles for a few seconds.  As soon as he had kicked the dog J drew his foot back like he was going to kick him again.  But Thomas had come up to him by then and pushed him away from the dog.  J hit the ground.  He got up and stepped toward Thomas like he was going to do something, so Thomas simply closed the distance between them and invited him to continue.  J didn't.  He went home with his tail tucked between his legs, threatening to call the police.  Afterward Thomas picked up Bruin to check him out and the older lady who lives across the street from us who had been sitting in her front yard the whole time called over to Thomas, saying, "Thomas I had my back turned.  I didn't see a thing!"  And her next door neighbor came over and said, "I'll say whatever you want me to say."  Now those are good neighbors.

Thomas did call the sheriff's office, and a deputy came out.  Apparently J had called them too.  The deputy took Thomas', Eler Beth's and our neighbor's statements, and he took pictures of the pup.  He just kept shaking his head and saying, "He's just a little pup!"  He told Thomas that it would be up to the prosecutor, but that he was pretty sure he wouldn't take it to court.  We had Bruin checked out and he was okay. 

Well Monday Thomas stopped by the prosecutor's office just to see about things, and the prosecutor told him that he'd warned J to stay away from our dogs, that he'd told J that he (the prosecutor) could understand why Thomas had pushed him, that J shouldn't have stepped into our yard, that it was just a three-month old puppy, and that he still had on file where J had allegedly threatened Eler Beth.  Later we found out in a roundabout way that J had "allegedly" offered some drugs to some of the young people in the neighborhood and the county police were keeping an eye on him for that.  And we found out that apparently he thinks he's some kind of gift to women, because he has "allegedly" tried to work his way into the  homes of at least two single females in the neighborhood.  (And they wouldn't let him in -- go figure!)

Anyway, I've wanted to write about this, because it had been on my mind so much.  I wasn't really worried about Thomas getting into any trouble, but you never know.  I haven't seen Joe since that happened.  A few days ago a pup of another neighbor of ours had a seizure (the vet said he'd been poisened; possibly had licked or drank something he shouldn't have), but all the neighbors along our block immediately figured it was J!  Turns out the pup had swallowed some glass!  But anyway, I think J has made himself scarce because we found out that he's got everybody on the block turned against him now.  Serves  him right.