Six years after Barb and I married in 1967 we went house hunting. All the houses we looked at seemed a bit rich for our pocketbook. We were ready to discontinue our efforts for a while when Barb found a house listed in the classified ads as “For Sale by Owner.” We made arrangements with the owners to have a walk-through of the house and although it was a fairly modest house built in 1927, it seemed like a mansion to us after living in a one bedroom apartment. After we had the house inspected, we sat at their dining room table to negotiate the price. The owners were much more seasoned than we were and wouldn’t budge. Finally, Barb said, “Couldn’t you just take $500 off the price?” At that point they jumped at Barb’s offer (not mine). Before long, we were proud owners of our first home.
But, this story is not about our house but the house directly across the street from us and its inhabitants! The houses across the street, also built in 1927, were much larger and more elaborate. The house of this story was mostly brick, with white pillars that were two stories tall – quite majestic looking. The inhabitants were two older ladies who had never married. The one lady, I’ll call her Bernie, inherited the house from her wealthy parents many years before. The other lady, Beth, was a retired school teacher. They were a perfect match, both exhibiting traits of obsessive compulsive disorder. Their lawn and their house were always perfect, down to picking up individual leaves on their lawn and being upset when leaves from neighbors blew on their property.
On occasion, one was invited into their house to visit. The large living room was in the front of the house and seemed it should have a maroon velvet cord (similar to those you would see in a movie theater to control the movie goers) at the entrance to the room. The living room was filled with antiques and on the very few occasions one was invited into the room, two problems confronted you. How could you delicately sit on the furniture? And how could you keep yourself from taking in the room while talking to the two ladies, known as the “Girls,” who reminded me of the Baldwin Sisters on the television show The Waltons? Most of the time the visitors were ushered to the second floor to the huge master bedroom that ran across the entire second floor and served as a sitting room.
As the years passed, both of the Girls entered their eighties and became a little more fragile and forgetful. One afternoon, we received a call from them asking us if we could come over right away. This was a somewhat unusual request, so after pondering a short while why they had summoned us, we went to their house. Both of the Girls were visibly upset. They explained to us that George, a big burly guy with a beard who lived a couple of houses up the street from us, had done some work at their house and they knew he must have a key because he would sneak into the house at night and take their money and then have a meal in their kitchen and leave dirty dishes. Obviously, we knew George and tried to explain to them they must be mistaken. They assured us that they had money in white envelopes in their bedrooms and it was missing. Barb and I offered to go upstairs and look for the money as long as they would come with us (to make sure they didn’t accuse us of taking anything). We went up with their approval and accompaniment and during our search found a few envelopes with hundreds of dollars of cash in them. Then, we had to go to the kitchen and view the dirty dishes. We tried to explain to the Girls how these two things could not have happened and George would never do a thing like this.
The story continued when we saw a local police car in front of the Girls’ house. I went across the street to talk with the policeman and related the above story and to vouch for George. The policeman told us he knew what was happening with the imagination of the two elderly ladies, but he had to follow-up with them anyway and also talk with George. I talked with George as well and advised him of the Girls’ unfounded accusations. The police could not substantiate the Girls’ claims and closed their incident file.
End of story, right? Wrong! Following other complaints about George, the police found George taking advantage of other elderly people in the town and he was sent to jail.
But wait, that is also not the end of the story. The story above is true in its entirety, except for the part that there was anybody taken advantage of and that George was guilty and sent to jail. The reason why I made up this part of the story is to emphasize that as people get older, certain information they supply is less apt to be believed. Some of those older people may see themselves as less important, less heard or may even doubt themselves. It is your responsibility and mine to lend them a special ear!
Note: This column is not to denigrate our older citizens. I know many in their eighties or nineties that are as sharp as a tack. Also, I might be sticking up for myself because within 10 years, I will be an octogenarian.
Jeff Hall, of Honey Brook, contributes columns to Berks-Mont Newspapers. Questions/comments may be directed to jeffreyhall77@comcast.net.
