In the spring of 2022, which feels like a startlingly long time ago, I made an easy friendship.

A man slowly walked by with his bushy-tailed dog as I was doing some native planting in my yard. He had a prominent nose and a receding hairline that led to long, white hair, tied back in a disheveled ponytail. He noticed my yard sign-ubiquitous in 2020 and the run off “new normal” era, it reflected that a child in my home was graduating from the local middle school. He struck up a conversation in relation to it. Next thing I knew, he was sitting on my front bench, stroking the long, black, white and ginger fur of his elderly pet as our conversation winded in many directions, often with him asking me to repeat names and ages of my children. His name is Jerry.

We talked about how he grew up in the Bronx and his artist son in his 50s with a young child who doesn’t live locally. He told me how he made his money selling workwear to coal miners in Appalachia, and he attested to his first-hand knowledge when I told him I’d recently read a book about the opiate addiction that runs rampant through the area. He told me how he once bought a house in the Carolinas that lost him so much money you’d gawk. That he’s lived on our long, winding, often high-speed road for 50 years.

It was reminder how fulfilling it is to do yard work, not just because toiling in sunshine and dirt gets us closer to our ancestors, but because standing in your front yard, you’re likely to catch a friendly wave from inside the SUV of a known neighbor or to make a new friend out of a passerby. You can’t get that scrolling through your phone.

We had a few other run-ins, including at least once when he knocked on my door for a brief conversation. He told me that he met my next door neighbor, the man of the house. He, like Jerry and I, loves to treasure hunt for used items. They must have bonded over that, because one day my neighbor gifted Jerry a couple of oversized Halloween decorations—gargoyles. Placed them anonymously on his front stoop. The joy the gesture brought Jerry was palpable. 

I didn’t see Jerry for a long while, which isn’t out of the ordinary for winter in Connecticut. People tend to hibernate, but spring passed by, then summer. One day we caught him on our doorbell camera pulling in to the driveway, picking up a fallen branch after a storm, and throwing it into the bed of his itty bitty pickup truck. A week later, my husband said “someone just came and put something on the doorstep. Were you expecting someone?” I went outside and saw a gallon of milk. Jerry’s truck was pulled into the driveway next door, and I saw him heading back to his driver’s side door.

“Jerry! Hey Jerry! Did you leave this gallon of milk here?”

“Oh! Oh, hi. Yes, yes. I left one next door, too. For—“ his brow furrows, his eyes looking upward and to the left, searching.

“Dave.”

“Oh yes! Dave. Of course. Dave. He’s such a great father. And his daughter—don’t tell me.”

I patiently wait, give clues, and we go over everyone’s names in their home and mine. Jerry shares with me that he was once a milkman in the Bronx, when he was young. I joked with him, asking if what they say about milkmen was true and if he had any illegitimate children. We got a good laugh before he shared that the only fun he ever had being a milkman was when he wanted to shorten his time and effort going up and down all those walk up apartments by hopping from one rooftop to the next—he’d make his deliveries going upstairs, get to the rooftop, cross to the next building over, make those deliveries going downstairs, go back to the truck to gather more milk and do it all again. What a method! My neighbor, the lady of the house and one of my dearest friends, came outside with intention to leave and saw her car blocked by Jerry’s truck and her own gallon of milk. She then had the pleasure of meeting Jerry, too.

A few weeks pass, and I’m sanding a couple of benches to prepare them for a new coat of paint, when I see Jerry’s little truck coming around the corner. I hope he stops—and he does. He sits with me, shares a bit of the work, but mostly makes the work more enjoyable with his company. Dave pulls in next door and gifts Jerry another yard sale find, and he and his daughter point out that they had gifted him a two-foot-tall clown hanging from a rope statue that he has hung from his passenger grab handle, putting off the illusion that he’s got a small clown hanging next to him as he drives through town. (I can’t make this stuff up!)

Jerry’s insistent that I need more sandpaper, so he heads over to his house. He returns not only with the sandpaper, but with some vintage cameras for my neighbor’s daughter, a junior in high school with a newfound interest in photography. Our families are gathered around with Jerry, sitting on the benches, exchanging stories and finding treasures in the bed of his little truck that he got from the dump that he wants us to have. I deem him the neighborhood grandpa. At one point, he mentions his birthday is in a few weeks and I quietly take note in my phone.

Last week was that birthday, and we showed up to Jerry’s house, tucked behind a few trees and down a long driveway, for the first time. One of my sons had a small cake in hand, the other a couple of balloons.

We had the pleasure to meet Jerry’s wife, Pat. Prior we’d only seen old photographs of her in a photo album he pulled out of his truck on a couple of occasions, and been told that she’s not a fan of his collection of artifacts from the dump—which, as the only person in my house who takes on the task of getting things out, I can understand. She is warm, beautiful, full of vitality, and even invited us into their home, with 12-foot-tall bookshelves and a collection of his treasures. He showed us some of his photographs hanging on the wall, and a stunning portrait his son had painted of him.

As Jerry took bites of his cake, I asked him how old he was turning. He thought for a moment, and said, “78.” 

“Jerry! You don’t look a day over 74!”

~~~

Jerry is a good friend to have. He’s got great one-liners and he emanates a lighthearted way of living that’s admirable. Even my grumpy teenager says he wishes that his bus stop was in front of Jerry’s house so he’d see him more often.

Jerry gets me thinking about who I want to be as I age. Aging is assumed to be an isolating act, as people you’ve loved move on in a multitude of ways—some more heartbreaking than others. There are less opportunities for the busy-ness that introduces new people into your life as you get older and children are out of the house. But Jerry is a newfound and welcome friend to me and my neighbors—we all are thrilled to see him. I can only hope that I’ll have the same effect on people for all my years to come

Jerry also reminds me to slow down. Not just because he took it upon himself to nail up signs throughout the road reminding drivers to slow down, including one that quips “this isn’t a race track!”. I’m usually shuffling from one task to the next-errands, drop offs, pick ups, yard work, a hurried walk around the block with the dog to appease my not-a-dog-mom guilt before waiting for the school bus-when I cross paths with Jerry. I try to make it a point to stop and chat with him, hear his jokes, and let time reach Appalachia speed while I tell him what my kids’ names are again.