PURLOIN OF THE PRIVY

So when you hang out with two old educators you pick up a different take on life in the Paupack neighborhood.   

When I visit my friend, I am surrounded by bucolic surroundings, with deer, bear, and the sounds of birds permeating my every core!  Who would think that the excitement in the neighborhood would be the purloining of the privy!  

The phone rang.  

“Someone purloined the privy!”  

“What?  The privy?”

“Yes, I saw them load it in the truck.”

“Call the neighbor and see what he knows.”

A few minutes later, after a call to the neighbor the phone rang again.  

“He’s not there so I didn’t find out anything.  We will wait until he gets back then I’ll check.”

So two little old ladies, sitting on the front porch watching the purloining of the privy…not knowing what to do, trying to figure out from a distance what is going on in the neighborhood wait for their friend's return to see if he knows the scoop on the privy.

I could only sit and giggle at the conversation between these two old friends.  

Coming home from a trip to the grocery store we hear the beep of the telephone message machine.  My friend goes to the phone and hears, “Harry is in jail.”  She hangs up.  Audrey calls her old friend and says, “Coffee’s on, pie cut, come down and tell me everything!”

“I’m not wearing my bra,” Tempe says.

“No one cares, just come over the way you are!”

So now we are all hanging out over coffee, pie, and the stories of police, gunshots, and road chases. 

“Things are just not the same as they use to be,” they lament.  

“Remember when the neighbor first moved in and I went to the door with flowers and some home baked goods and a welcome to the neighborhood?” Audrey asked.

“Yes, then we found out he was a thief!”  

Both robustly laughing at the memories of a neighborhood in transition, one gets the sense that these two are the last caretakers in their community.  

As I watch my friend prepare to leave her home and move out with her son in Wisconsin, I can’t help but wonder if she is not going to miss this life in Paupack and the old friends who can still make her feel young!

By the way, the privy was not purloined.  It was being repaired.  It took days to figure out, but it kept the two old friends on the lookout.  

Just keeping the neighborhood safe!