when i started this series, i had intended it to be a collection of vignettes about our neighbors on the street where i grew up--a collective snapshot of a time and place long gone--but dropped the effort after a couple installments, due, as i said at the time, to my faulty memory.
but that wasn't strictly true.
there are actually many stories i could've told about our cherished neighbors to the left, the harburgers--like the time when the imminent hurricane carla so spooked al that he spent two days covering every inch of every window of their house with masking tape and then the next five years scraping it off;
or the christmas when they set up the nativity scene in their front yard along with an endless loop of a new song called "the little drummer boy" that drove the entire street insane;
or the tough-love pact that mildred and my mother made to wean their toddlers from their pacifiers by throwing 'em all away, and my mother's fury three days later when she found out the reason mildred looked so well-rested was because she'd secretly saved one;
or the summer their daughter debby came home from college with big news and al blurted "omigod you're pregnant" as she announced she was becoming a nun.
I could have told any of those stories and several more, but i decided that if i couldn't tell the harberger story i wanted to tell, i wouldn't tell any story at all. but then a couple weeks ago i happened to run it by my resident oppressed-minority representative, v, who said, "fuck PC--you gotta write this one up."
so for better or worse, here's the story about the time my mother and mildred harburger committed a hate crime.
4. the harburgers
i only learned the details decades later, but at the time it happened all i knew was that i woke up one saturday morning when i was eight to find my mother with no eyebrows, the ash's front lawn burned to a crisp and none of the grownups talking.
apparently the evening before had begun innocently enough, with neighbors gathered at our house for drinks after the kids had been put to bed, nothing unusual for a friday night on our street back then.
the trouble started about three drinks in when laverne ash said something un-negative about the big civil rights bill president johnson was trying to push through congress, prompting the men to pull out their wallets and offer to buy her a bus ticket to selma. laverne, thin-skinned as always, dragged her husband vernon out of his chair and, despite everyone saying they were just kidding, left in a huff.
my mother insists to this day that what happened next was mrs. harberger's idea but since it seems so completely at odds with my memories of that sweet catholic lady, i'm skeptical. this one has the stink of my mother all over it but whatever, we'll go with her version.
"everybody'd left and your dad had gone to bed," she told me long after the statute of limitations had passed, "but mildred stayed to help me clean up. we were a little tipsy--you know how i get when i've had a couple and god knows she's worse. we were laughing about how pissed off laverne was and mildred said, 'you know what would be funny?'"
i'm more interested in the technical aspects. "but where did you find wood at two in the morning to make the thing?"
"hell, i didn't know anything about gasoline, michael. i just dumped the whole can on it."
to hear my mother tell it, when the match was struck, the resulting WHOOSH! not only knocked her and mildred off their feet, it rattled windows all up and down the block.
as flames erupted, lights went on in all the surrounding houses and the degree of their miscalculation became apparent, the brains of the operation hightailed it for home, leaving my mother to dive under mr. ash's company car as their front door flew open.
i can't begin to tell you, gentle readers, how much i'd have given to see the expression on perennially-uptight laverne's face when she opened her door to the spectacle of that crooked cross burning in the midst of the lake of fire that had recently been her flawless front lawn. but trust me, it would've been a lot.
"VERNON," she screamed to her husband, "GET THE GUN!"
half a century later, birdwood road is a very different place than it was when we lived there. the minority influx that had given our neighbors such nightmares back in the day is now pretty much complete, and all those pretty little houses that were once occupied by lily-white suburbanites are homes to black and brown families now.
all, that is, except one.
i saw mildred harburger a few years ago, on the occasion of my mother's surprise 75th birthday party--older, of course, but otherwise little changed, with that same serene air and warm smile.
"the kids want me to move, mike, but it's my home. i love my neighbors and they look out for me."
if there's one thing life's taught me, it's that things change.
I could have told any of those stories and several more, but i decided that if i couldn't tell the harberger story i wanted to tell, i wouldn't tell any story at all. but then a couple weeks ago i happened to run it by my resident oppressed-minority representative, v, who said, "fuck PC--you gotta write this one up."
so for better or worse, here's the story about the time my mother and mildred harburger committed a hate crime.
4. the harburgers
i only learned the details decades later, but at the time it happened all i knew was that i woke up one saturday morning when i was eight to find my mother with no eyebrows, the ash's front lawn burned to a crisp and none of the grownups talking.
apparently the evening before had begun innocently enough, with neighbors gathered at our house for drinks after the kids had been put to bed, nothing unusual for a friday night on our street back then.
the trouble started about three drinks in when laverne ash said something un-negative about the big civil rights bill president johnson was trying to push through congress, prompting the men to pull out their wallets and offer to buy her a bus ticket to selma. laverne, thin-skinned as always, dragged her husband vernon out of his chair and, despite everyone saying they were just kidding, left in a huff.
my mother insists to this day that what happened next was mrs. harberger's idea but since it seems so completely at odds with my memories of that sweet catholic lady, i'm skeptical. this one has the stink of my mother all over it but whatever, we'll go with her version.
"everybody'd left and your dad had gone to bed," she told me long after the statute of limitations had passed, "but mildred stayed to help me clean up. we were a little tipsy--you know how i get when i've had a couple and god knows she's worse. we were laughing about how pissed off laverne was and mildred said, 'you know what would be funny?'"
i'm more interested in the technical aspects. "but where did you find wood at two in the morning to make the thing?"
"that's what gave us the idea. your dad and al had just finished building the fences around our backyards. there were all these scraps piled next to the house, so we grabbed a couple pieces."
"but how did you put it together? you don't know one end of a hammer from the other."
"we tied it with nylon hose, silly. nailing it would've been stupid--that would've woken up the whole neighborhood." because god forbid they should do something stupid.
once their creation was complete, they wrapped it with toilet paper for extra flammability, grabbed a gas can from our garage and, giggling all the way, dragged it down to the ash's house and staked it in the middle of their front yard. the plan was to light it up, ring the doorbell, run and hide behind the cars and watch as hilarity ensued. as it turned out, the ringing-the-doorbell part would prove unnecessary.
"but how did you put it together? you don't know one end of a hammer from the other."
"we tied it with nylon hose, silly. nailing it would've been stupid--that would've woken up the whole neighborhood." because god forbid they should do something stupid.
once their creation was complete, they wrapped it with toilet paper for extra flammability, grabbed a gas can from our garage and, giggling all the way, dragged it down to the ash's house and staked it in the middle of their front yard. the plan was to light it up, ring the doorbell, run and hide behind the cars and watch as hilarity ensued. as it turned out, the ringing-the-doorbell part would prove unnecessary.
"hell, i didn't know anything about gasoline, michael. i just dumped the whole can on it."
to hear my mother tell it, when the match was struck, the resulting WHOOSH! not only knocked her and mildred off their feet, it rattled windows all up and down the block.
as flames erupted, lights went on in all the surrounding houses and the degree of their miscalculation became apparent, the brains of the operation hightailed it for home, leaving my mother to dive under mr. ash's company car as their front door flew open.
i can't begin to tell you, gentle readers, how much i'd have given to see the expression on perennially-uptight laverne's face when she opened her door to the spectacle of that crooked cross burning in the midst of the lake of fire that had recently been her flawless front lawn. but trust me, it would've been a lot.
"VERNON," she screamed to her husband, "GET THE GUN!"
how did i always manage to sleep through all the good shit?
* * * * *
half a century later, birdwood road is a very different place than it was when we lived there. the minority influx that had given our neighbors such nightmares back in the day is now pretty much complete, and all those pretty little houses that were once occupied by lily-white suburbanites are homes to black and brown families now.
all, that is, except one.
i saw mildred harburger a few years ago, on the occasion of my mother's surprise 75th birthday party--older, of course, but otherwise little changed, with that same serene air and warm smile.
"the kids want me to move, mike, but it's my home. i love my neighbors and they look out for me."
if there's one thing life's taught me, it's that things change.
