We live on a gravel road, one mile back from the paved road, then four miles to Highway 62 — a right turn to Eureka Springs, left to Berryville. Typical for Ozark backroads, ours has been chewn up with potholes after all the heavy rain. Recently someone began filling them in one stretch of the road, and when I saw him, in a pick-em-up truck full of gravel, I hollered “Thank You!” as I drove past. His place is the sixth residence on the road, but the benefit accrues to everyone else who lives further back. Just being a good neighbor.
Yesterday another neighbor delivered us fresh eggs. He has previously given us produce, catfish, deer, and cut and split firewood for us. My wife has baked cookies for him, but he does a lot more for us than we have for him – he is just neighborly.
Before she moved in with us, my mother-in-law bought an old stone house in Berryville, where our daughter now lives. Big old trees threatened the roof of the house next door, so we had some trimmed or removed. We hauled home wood that we could manage and told our wood-cutting neighbor he could have the rest. He is big and strong enough to haul the big logs, has a splitter, and uses an outdoor furnace that will burn any wood you throw in there. Free fuel.
Another neighbor connected a tiller to his tractor and plowed gardens for himself and others, and asked if we had a place that needed tilling, though unfortunately, we don’t at this moment. During virus time, his wife told me recently that is we need anything, just call. Good neighbors.
I wrote a couple weeks ago about how we might spend our $1200 corona-bonuses within the community, and I neglected to mention several good causes. First, I will buy a subscription to this newspaper, Eureka Springs Independent, which is hurting because closed-down businesses can’t buy ads. I usually pick up a free copy somewhere, but a free independent paper has costs, too.
Second, we will donate money to Suzie Bell’s campaign for state legislature. Suzie and her husband co-founded the ECHO clinic and built the ECHO village. These projects serve people who cannot afford health care or a nice solid house. We met Suzie when we volunteered once to help with landscaping at ECHO village – all labor is voluntary, and most if not all building materials were donated. She was a whirlwind, cleaning, painting, directing workers, taking phone calls.
Two years back, I met the person she is running against, Harlan Breaux, at the dump in Berryville, of all places. He said he was running for that seat because Bob Ballinger was “being promoted to state Senate.” The assumption that both would win merely because they are Republicans galled me. Yes, I know that 20 years ago, any Democrat would have been an automatic victor, if he even had a GOP opponent. But we should vote the person, not the party, particularly for local offices. Suzie Bell’s record of Christian volunteerism and community involvement qualifies her – she is a fine neighbor.
A friend of ours recently published a memoir, Back to the Land. Ruth Weinstein’s ancestors were refugees from Russia who helped found an agricultural community in New Jersey around 1900. Ruth and her husband continued that tradition when they emigrated to the Ozarks in the 1970s. Buying copies of her book is the neighborly thing to do.
Jesus said “love thy neighbor as thyself,” and of course he didn’t mean only the people whose homes are closest to your own. During this surreal time of social distancing, wearing a mask is being neighborly, if we are all in this together. True, I do not put on my mask for curbside service with no human contact, but if I am in a place with lots of people, wearing the mask signifies solidarity and respect for community health. I don’t like that choosing or refusing to wear a mask has become a symbol of political perspective. Love thy neighbor, even if they ain’t like you.
Kirk Ashworth