Excerpt from Coming of Age with Aging Parents The Bungles, Battles and Blessings
Taking Territorialism to the Streets is one of sixty vignettes of Coming of Age with Aging Parents: The Bungles, Battles, and Blessings, Written by Gail Goeller. To read the entire book, please see Patina Productions.
I knew trouble was brewing when my father complained about the next-door-neighbor parking in front of the “family abode.” I had felt it coming. Three times earlier that week, I had pulled up to his house to find Dad’s silhouette decorating the front window, letting me know he was on patrol.
I tried convincing him he had no business claiming curbside territory, but he waged a full-fledged squatter’s rights protest. The next day planks of wood with rows of pointed nails lined the juncture where asphalt met concrete. Scarcely avoiding the casualty of punctured tires, I made my irritation evident, causing Dad to scowl and retrieve his carpentry.
By the end of the week, Dad had invented new strategies — scattering animal excrement, deposited by passing canines, in front of the “illegally parked” cars and positioning the sprinkler alongside vehicles with open windows. At night I worried he would die a violent death at the hands of an adversary with slimy tires and drenched upholstery.
Dad’s investment in protecting his parking strip was, I realized, a reaction to his increasing powerlessness in old age, and also to his vulnerability in a changed neighborhood. During the first several years he and my mother had spent in this home, the entire neighborhood had observed an unwritten code of honor. Doors were never locked; curfews were enforced; people who owned dogs cleaned up after them; individuals who borrowed tools returned them; when a neighbor was ailing, others mowed their lawn or delivered casseroles.
Then a decade later, the community had been transformed, with Dad’s home suddenly bordered by rentals housing a mix of college students, welfare recipients, and drug dealers. Living in what was now a high-crime area he’d become increasingly anxious about personal safety.
The coup de grâce was delivered during my visit on Sunday when a young, attractive policewoman paid a house call. Taking in her red hair, pale blue eyes, and ample curves, Dad pulled his crumpled frame up straight and feigned a polite smile before she cooed, “You know, this can’t continue, Mr. G. We had another complaint—this one about windshields being waxed. You have got to stop your battle. Think of all the time and talent you’ve devoted to this community. You don’t want to spoil it now, do you?”
“You think I soaped that guy’s windshield?” Dad replied. “Hell, that’s why I park my car in the garage—to avoid the vandalism around here.” I refrained from interjecting that he had no car, that we had taken it from him and he had since bequeathed it to his granddaughter.
Ms. Law didn’t bite. “You are the one who can stop the vandalism. In fact, we are counting on you, as someone who had made a difference on the west side of town. Will you do this for me?”
A vigilante at heart, Dad had to agree. Besides, this Kathryn Hepburn look-alike, calling on him to perform a heroic act, had made him melt. . . . Continue reading
About the Author:
In the award-winning book, Coming of Age with Aging Parents: The Bungles, Battles, and Blessings, Gail Goeller, summarizes the 12 years of eldercare she and her husband, John, spent with five local relatives.
In addition, the Goellers founded and published The Directory for Seniors and Their Families in 1994, an annual national award-winning guide listing myriad resources for the aging in several Washington state communities with regional satellite publications in Idaho. and is currently customized for Spokane, Yakima, North Idaho, and Tacoma.
