I’ve grown accustomed to waving at an elderly man who lives in my neighborhood. He sits on his front porch for hours on end when the weather is warm and watches the traffic go by. He’s been doing that for as long as I can remember—although, there was a time in which he seemed to prefer sitting in a chair by the side of his house. As much as I love the fall, I always sort of dread it for his sake because he doesn’t like cool weather and it drives him inside until the following spring.
I’ve been over to his house on a number of occasions. Once I went over to offer to help him get rid of a mattress that was on his front porch. He directed me to his niece who called me and thanked me for being so willing to help because she didn’t know how she was going to get rid of it. I didn’t know how I was going to get rid of it either, but I finally found a friend with a truck who helped me. Another time I went over to his place to check on him after we had a nasty windstorm that knocked down trees and did major damage to some of the houses in our neighborhood. He was fine and I was glad to see he had electricity, because many of us did not.
I never got to know him well. Unfortunately, some idiot(s) robbed him twice at gunpoint over the years while he sat in his yard and understandably that seemed to make him leery of anybody approaching him, so I tried to keep it to a minimum. Over time, I think he got used to me waving at him as I drove by and he started waving back. That was sort of our thing.
One day this summer, I noticed he wasn’t out on his porch. I asked a neighbor about it and he said the man moved into an assisted living facility. I was glad to hear he’s okay, but bummed out to know I wouldn’t see him sitting on his front porch anymore. Recently, his house went up for sale and it sold quickly. But to me, it’ll always be his house.
