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Inspired by Talk to strangers' woes over here, I'd love to hear anecdotes and stories from people's interpersonal experiences with their past or present neighbours.
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Until I was 19 and moved away from home, I only ever had neighbours that were close family: First my grandmother, grandfather and their youngest son, my uncle Kjetil, who lived in the house my father grew up in along with 10 siblings. Gramps died when I was 6, leaving the two in the old house about 20 yards from the house my dad built. There were two big barns and a large two-story building for storage as well, comprising the farm proper along with some 400 acres of arable land and forest. Our house was the last on a bumpy washed-out gravel road that snaked I guess half a mile from the main road down a hillock and then gently sloping up towards a tongue of the woods, at the tip of which sat the farm. The next house (if going from our's up to the big road) after grandma's was my eldest uncle'n aunt's with their two sons that were some 8 and 10 years my seniors. Finally, just before you hit the big road - actually not big at all, but it was a small place - there was another slightly bigger farm where the closest non-family neighbours had their place. They had two kids almost exactly the same age as I and my brother, making them our nearest same-age friends, and at times, foes. Monica and Ingar, younger sister, older brother.
My dad has worked all his life on ships and oil-rigs, so since he was 13 he's been away from home for as long as 1 year at a time. Nowadays he lives the good life in comparison, working 2 weeks and then going home for 4!
Anyway, neighbours. So, there was us, grandma, my two uncles, one aunt and a family of four at the closest farm.
My dad was away a lot when I was younger, and my mum worked too, so before I started school I would hang around either at grandma's or with my aunt, or be going nuts somewhere in the countryside around.
(Seriouly, I don't know how this turned into my bio.)
I've always reckoned I was fortunate too grow up so close to family, and a pretty loving, peaceful and reasonable bunch of people at that. I had the freedom of the land and mostly just my brother to contend with, apart from the numerous other cousins and friends, some of whom were close in age, that came to visit us, grandma or aunt'n uncle. I reckon I was damned fortunate to have my grandma (and my mum's mum as well, but they live about 2000 km away) so close and vital in my upbringing. She's still kicking around at 91, and although she's taken to the Zimmer-frame since her legs started going, her brain is crystal clear, and her memory, wit and wisdom is still there.
When I turned around 7 or 8 my uncles and cousins were handy for stealing smokes and porn off (I started smoking properly when 13, I think that's enough with the porn for now), and although they naturally gave me like any precocious little brat a hard time for being me, they were likeable characters, and most importantly, since they had, as did my uncle, vast reservoirs of prepubescent manna in the form of comics and LPs/MCs, I never pissed them off too much.
Phew. I'll come back with more later. If. If this is at all interesting to yawl. |
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