R. I. P. Coal

Our neighborhood has experienced some crazy things. For example, we all know Reflector Man and his antics. He used to take his dog into everybody else's yard to do its business. We suspect the offending pooch is dead, as we've only seen RM out by himself. It's kind of like this Fidel business. Is he dead? Is it Memorex?

Then, last spring, the neighborhood was disrupted by county paving trucks. Our roads were in disrepair, and although the rerouting and roadblocks were an inconvenience, we were happy to be getting resurfaced roads.

Not!

They didn't resurface anything! Instead, they patched and sealed cracks. Now our roads look like a giant jigsaw puzzle. It offends me daily.

Then, a few years ago we had a neighbor that grew corn in his front yard. He had a corner lot, so one could argue that he was growing corn in the side yard. Whatever, anybody driving past his house would see the corn. It was a bizarre situation, so we started calling the old guy Farmer Dude because he had a tractor and wore overalls. He even had a straw hat. When he put the house up for sale we were sure it would never sell. Frankly, it didn'thave much curb appeal, what with the dead corn and all.

After about a year, a younger couple bought the house. The first thing they did was raze the cornfield. Then, this guy started exhibiting weird lawn behaviors. He planted banana trees. In Georgia. Then he planted new grass, but never cut it. Finally, he cut it with one of those antique push-movers that don't have a motor. We quickly dubbed him Farmer Dude II (Farmer Dude, Too--I crack myself up, thankyouverymuch).

This guy has to be our most eccentric neighbor to date. He mows the lawn in little sections of geometric designs and right angles, with clumps of weeds left to grow wildly, and then he'll come back on a different day and mow them down, only to leave some other patch in its natural state. It's a mystery.

Finally, John the Conversationalist approached Farmer Dude II and discovered that the guy works in a box all day, with no windows or sunlight, so when he gets home in the afternoons he does yardwork to reconnect to the world. OK, I can buy that.

It still doesn't explain the crop circles.