Neighbors — David K. Buchholz

Paul Slater lived two houses away from us. Before he died (about three years ago) we would chat whenever I passed by his house and he was outside sweeping the sidewalk. He always stopped sweeping where his driveway ended, as the one house between us had a long and often leaf-filled appearance, so even if the fence didn’t divide the two properties, the leaves did. Paul was a retired university lecturer on something. When we moved here in 2004 he was retired but employed by one of those services that hire people to look through newspapers and cut out either ads or stories for some reason that I don’t know. A Luddite by nature, Paul never owned a cell phone or computer. He had a rotary dial phone, and because he only had tungsten lights in his house there was always a yellow glow coming through his front window. Sally and Glenn didn’t like that he complained about the noise their children made. And Bob Frassetto, our shared neighbor, got into an argument about Bob’s fence being too tall, or in the wrong spot, and they didn’t talk.

Bob Frassetto didn’t talk to me, either. I don’t think he talked to anyone in the neighborhood, and they, in turn didn’t talk to him. About five years ago I complained that the little fence that divides the creek that we share prevented the leaves from passing through the fence, causing the creek to flood and wash away my landscaping. He said, “I never want you to set foot on my property again.” After a year or so I passed by his house as he was leaving. I asked, “Bob, are you ever going to talk to me?” He replied, “You disgust me!” And because I disgusted him those were the last words we ever exchanged. (I hate it when I disgust people).

In earlier times, before I disgusted him, I took this photo of him with Kylee (a product of Bob and wife #2), and Kylee’s older stepsister Zoe, (a product of wife #1). This summer he married wife #3 and sold his house last week. Wife #2 is a real estate agent, and she actually listed the house before Bob fired her the day that the house went on the market where it languished for three months. We’re expecting new neighbors on Friday.

I taught Kylee how to ride a bike. As she was gaining her balance I ran after the bike down Vermont and Rugby while her father stood in the front yard in his green bathrobe, a cup of steaming Folger’s in his hand.

Kylee is now twenty-one, and Zoe is perhaps in her thirties. Neither one of them has anything to do with Bob.

Greg Yeary lived with Bob for ten years, trading room and board for his contracting skills. Greg built fences, a tree house for Kylee, planter boxes, reshingled the house. Whatever bad feelings we had for Bob were more than mitigated by good feelings for Greg. Bob sold the house. Greg left. Before he did he built a bathroom for us, fixed any number of things I couldn’t, and made many repairs at our Woolsey Street apartment.

Maria Curtis lives across from Bob, on the corner of Rugby and Vermont. When we first moved to Kensington we became friends. Her Costa Rican daughter-in-law Sonia came to visit Jadyne and me frequently. She and Paul, Maria’s son, lived downstairs from Maria, and Sonia was always trying to escape the tension she felt in this crowded house, where Maria criticized Sonia for almost everything. Here, Sonia, have another cup of coffee. Decaf this time.

Maria was married to Wallace Curtis, who died, as I remember, of cancer perhaps ten years or so ago. Maria goes to Mass every day. Her house in an impenetrable collection of things on the floor, walls, shelves, chairs, and tables. She has asked me on occasion to fix things I can’t. She brought me expired ink cartridges I promised her that I would take them to the toxic waste center. I may have done that. Here’s Maria.

Gary Roda lives next to Maria in the hilltop house he grew up in. My redwood trees block Gary’s view of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, a view that would probably add a quarter of a million dollars to his property. He once said to me, “I’m saving you $25,000.” “Thank you”, I replied, “How so?” He responded, “I’ve decided not to sue you for the redwood trees that block my view” “Thank you,” I repeated, as I continued to wipe the now dry NuFinish car wax off my car. Gary hoped that we would be open to mediation, so he had brochures sent to us about “spite trees”, whose presence devalues someone else’s property. The brochure begins, “To a Berkeley property owner.” I returned the brochure. I live in Kensington, in Contra Costa County. Gary lives in Berkeley, in Alameda County. Case closed. We’re friends now. He was literally up a tree in getting all of us neighbors to cut whatever we might choose just to give him a snippet or two of a view.

And next to Gary live Guillermo and Davi Grossman. They’re wonderful people. Guillermo escaped Spain and the dictator Francisco Franco, looking for freedom. He’s an economist, works in San Francisco, and can often be seen jogging or walking Yashmi, their out of control puppy. Guillermo makes a paella to die for. Davi makes exquisite jewelry. She loves cats. Her license plate is QAT. We have no idea how many she has at any given time. Once in a while they discover fur outside their house. Kensington is a coyote heaven.

Guillermo, Davi, and Nico, a sophomore at UC Santa Barbara.

Double Feature on the Left. Nick and Russ lived there for several years, along with their canine and feline menagerie. When they moved to NYC (Nick took a job managing the Rockefeller Philanthropic Organization) we were sick. I’ve written about them in my blog:

http://www.davidkbuchholz.com/new-blog/2021/7/18/russ-and-nick

They come back to the Bay Area a couple of times a year to visit friends. Russ’s mother lives in the Central Valley. Our disappointment that they moved was mitigated by the arrival of Anthony, Farrah, and their two children, Celine and Nigel. A Christmas photo two or three years ago.

Farrah’s mother, father and her siblings have, because of some genetic anomaly, had their spleens surgically removed. Two years ago Farrah’s surgery went south, and she spent a difficult January at the Stanford Hospital. She’s recovered, and we’re all grateful, as are her mother and her siblings, who, like her, were named for movie stars. Marilyn, Marcello, Marlon, etc. While she was recovering her family came to tend the children, and on at least one occasion I drove her mother to the hospital.

Living next door to Farrah and Anthony are Jen, Carys, and Alvin Lumanlan. Their marriage several years ago was billed a “Hiker/Biker” affair, featuring the bride hiking and the groom riding. They’ve continued in that vein, having hiked in Patagonia and ridden all the hills in the Tour de France. In the rain. When Carys was not much older than she is in this photograph Jen went hiking in Europe for several days, packing food, supplies, and a baby.

Jen has at least two Master’s degrees and operates a website teaching interested moms and dads how to be a perfect parent, or at the least, how to solve parenting issues. She home schools Carys.

https://yourparentingmojo.com/

Alvin was in advertising, but as of now he’s both a stay at home dad and a photographer who’s hoping to make a living with his camera.

Behind us live the Yearwoods. Kahlil is an attorney. Amber is a stay at home mom. Here’s Amber, pregnant with her second child.

For ten years their house was occupied by the Flinchbaughs. Sally runs the Palo Alto Jewish Community Center, a job she had in Berkeley. Glenn is in tech, and I have no idea what he actually does. We were saddened to see them move. We hosted a farewell party for them before they left.

Back row: Russell, Carol and Jim Patton, Cecile Grant, Chris Anderson, Glenn Flinchbaugh, David Anderson, Guillermo and Davi Grossman, Rachel, Jen Lumanlan, Isla and me.
Front row; Nick, Tess Flinchbaugh, Alvin Lumanlan, Jadyne, Jack Flinchbaugh, Jennifer, Nico, Sally Flinchbaugh, Jason, Reed Flinchbaugh, Susanto, Andrew, and Hawthorn.

And across the street live the Pattons. More at home camping for months in Death Valley trapping rodents, Jim has been shipwrecked five times and spends his happiest times in the mountains and deserts. His greatest work is the one thousand page volume “The Rodents of South America”, available everywhere. Carol, a speech therapist, patiently, goes with him. Jim is a professor emeritus at Cal, and even though he turned 80 this year work is what he knows. And loves. Carol writes letters to senators and congressmen almost every day, hoping, as we all are, that things will get better. Jim and Carol have no children, but they care for an assortment of pet turtles who have the run of their house.

An ex-neighbor and a neighbor. On the left is Charlie Patton, who was renting a house with his wife Donna, and their daughter, Eva. Charlie’s father died and left Charlie enough money to buy his own house. They live less than five minutes away.

Next to Charlie is Nancy Rubin. Nancy taught at Berkeley High School, and in retirement took up photography. She has a sensitivity in knowing what makes a good photograph. She also has a rapport for the people she photographs and has shown her work around the Bay Area.

And George. George is single. He retired from UCB a few years ago where he did a lot of stuff with computers. I recruited George to volunteer for the Berkeley Food Pantry. He created a software program to replace the rolodex cards in shoe boxes and has been active in keeping the Pantry running smoothly. George has envied our Tesla for the past three years and is awaiting delivery in January for his. George is a twitcher and his only worry about the Tesla is running out of electricity as he chases down a previously unseen double-breasted Sopwith Camel. Or whatever. Once a bird never seen this far south was spotted in Half Moon Bay. By the time George arrived the area was surrounded by bird lovers, cameras, telescopes, and what-have-you. Shortly thereafter (not when George was there), a peregrine falcon ended the bird’s journey south.

George lived next door (until last week) to Jim and Vi Gallardo. Jim and Vi bought their house in 1958, sixty-three years ago. We admired the two of them for living life to the fullest. Jim served in WWII and was a docent on a WW II ship docked in San Francisco Bay. A few years ago I took Hawthorn and Susanto for a personal visit to the ship.

After fighting cancer for several years Jim succumbed to it earlier this year. He was in his mid-nineties when he died. Vi stayed until last week. We loved them both. Good people. She, too, is in her nineties, and her son and daughter-in-law took her to their home in North Carolina. Jim and Vi had both admitted that they should have left their home with its three stories years earlier, when they were still more ambulatory. It will go on the market for the first time since they bought it when I was twelve.

Eveline,Charles, Vi,and Janice. Charles and Janice are Vi’s children.

And not all our neighbors are still with us. Ky, who lived in the Lumanlan’s house, passed soon after we moved in. So did Jim Jones. Kay and Russ Weeks both died, too, but Russ made it to 100. His daughter lives in the house. At the end of the street live John and Amy Ream, his daughter. His wife, Renee, died a month or so ago. When their son died unexpectedly several years earlier the neighbors held candles and sang Amazing Grace. Renee asked Jadyne and me to come to her bedside three days before she died, thanking us for what she felt we had done for the neighborhood.

Of all the neighbors who have passed, none has been missed more than Cecile Grant. When we moved here seventeen years ago she lived next door with her husband Jamie. Jamie died within a year or so, and their three daughters would have moved Cecile to a care facility, except that they knew Jadyne and I would take care of Cecile. We did.

We didn’t know Jamie nearly as well as we knew Cecile, who hated George Bush with such a passion that we were warned never to bring up his name in a conversation. She was as kind as she was fiery, providing us with cookies, cakes, dinners, spirited conversations,and the proceeds from a clock that Jamie’s employer, Bechtel, had awarded him for his retirement. I sold it on eBay for $1000. She wouldn’t take the money.

Cecile and her prized diesel Mercedes. When she gave up driving she sold it at a nominal price to the UPS driver who cherishes it.

From Wikipedia, "Neighbourhood is generally defined spatially as a specific geographic area and functionally as a set of social networks. Neighbourhoods, then, are the spatial units in which face-to-face social interactions occur—the personal settings and situations where residents seek to realise common values, socialise youth, and maintain effective social control."

We love our neighborhood, which, I’ve narrowed down to the houses on both sides of Rugby Avenue. I left some people out. Larry and Janet Johson, kind neighbors who contributed to my food collections for the Berkeley Food Pantry. Larry was just diagnosed with cancer this past summer and has a feeding tube; Janet is a former elementary school teacher at Madera, the school Isla and Susanto attend. To our left is Ursula. She’s Kahlil’s sister, and we never see her. She has two children, both of whom, we think, are autistic. And loud. Kathy Weeks lives in the house that belonged to her late parents. She thinks the election was stolen. There’s a Chinese couple that live at the end of the street and some Chinese students who live two doors down. We don’t know any of them. So it’s a selective neighborhood. Friends seek out friends. Those that keep to themselves keep to themselves.

Josie lives up the street. She calls herself a “Jew/Bu”, born Jewish but Buddhist in how she thinks and lives. She taught a class I attended for a year called “A Year to Live.” At the end of the class we all “died.” The last exercise was to walk up and down Solano Avenue and simply observe, recognizing that all that we saw would be taking place whether we were there or not. I sat in Starbucks for about thirty minutes, watching people lining up for “grandes”, couples sharing conversations, students on laptops. No one looked at me. Not my neighborhood.