Month: February 2020

I’m not going to do a bunch of research on this. I think that Good Neighbor Day was the brainchild of President Jimmy Carter. President Carter was the first President of whom I was genuinely aware of as President. I remember Ford and Nixon, but they were just some abstract politicians. And I once dressed up as Lyndon Johnson for the third grade play at school, a cowboy hat on a third grader will bring down the house every time. Standing O brothers and sisters. I was up there with kids dressed like George Washington and Warren Harding, how was I not going to slay dressed like Lyndon “Drive Your Amphicar Into a Lake” Johnson?

For the younger readers, here’s what President Carter was like … imagine that a team of black-clad commandos dropped down from helicopters into a suburban school somewhere in Dayton Ohio, and then run silently through the halls giving hand signals to each other with military precision to head to “Point Tango” which turned out to be the fifth grade social studies room. They then throw a black hood over the teacher, run her back to the helicopter and take off. A beat later, they’re at the Ace-Hi Tavern with a bunch of cowboys, bikers, oil men, ranchers and narco traffickers, milling around on the street outside. The lead commando throws a shot of tequila into her face, shakes her shoulders, and screams “You got this lady! You got this!” They open the door and shove her into the crowd. ” Go git ’em!” She’s left there, with the new mission to teach this block party about the nuances of social studies.

So Carter somehow got the holiday “Good Neighbor Day” onto the calendar, and it’s been there ever since. Is it a good holiday? Is it at a time of the year when we really need holidays to cheer us up? Does it encourage neighbors to clean out litter from culverts and do yard chores for their neighbors who need extra help? Does it encourage things like barbecues, pickup football games or garden parties?

Neighbor Day encourages all of these things. And it encourages the lovely garden parties to open their doors to the barbecues, and the pickup football gamers to invite the neighborhood metalheads and stoners to have some fun too. Neighbor Day isn’t adulthood, it’s third grade, back when all the kids from the neighborhood played together because we had a lot more in common with being kids than we had things that made us different. And Jimmy Carter was onto that reality I think, he genuinely wanted to people to find a way to make friends and be happy, he was the third grade social studies teacher who remembered what it was like to be in third grade. (Our current administration is kind of the other side of that spectrum, more like a fight behind the dumpsters, with the bully who leads a bunch of secretly-soft fellow bullies against the secretly-hard high school chess club.)

I think that President Carter would enjoy Neighbor Day just as much as Good Neighbor Day. So President Carter, while you’re still alive, would you do us a big favor and give a shout-out to Neighbor Day? It would help us a lot, because look at the mountain of difficulty we face with getting this holiday into widespread love and acceptance … I mean, you were the friggen President of an economic juggernaut and you couldn’t get people to even remember what the fuck “Good Neighbor Day” even is, what chance do you think we have to get Neighbor Day off the ground? All due respect Mr. President, but if I had a shot of tequila in my hand, and you and I were drinking at the Ace-Hi Tavern, I would have to splash your face with the heavenly elixir and shake your shoulders and say “you got this man!” And then you and I would look out at the armies of cowboys and deadheads on Washington Street, and you would say “I think I need another one of those first.” Then I would say “good idea, Jim.” And then The President would say “Fuck this shit, I can’t teach all those people anything about social studies, let’s just go have a smoke in Miners Alley. I’m out, do you have any ciggerbuddies?”

“I sure do Mr. President. I’ll trade you one unfiltered Seneca for a shout-out to Neighbor Day.”

Actually, I didn’t, but in my mind, I looked at my calendar, at all those different holidays, and I thought to myself “maybe if I write it in myself this year, someday it will be printed with the calendar, and someday Neighbor Day will be every bit as famous as Pizza Day, or as the National Calcium Miners Day of Recognition.

Robbie named Neighbor Day, as he names most good things of clear value. He wanted a day in February, and I was good with it, but the opportunity to tie Neighbor Day into the 311 phone service seemed like a good opportunity. Ultimately, the phone is the simplest kind of computer, and a three-digit phone number is only exceeded in simplicity by dialing ‘O’ for the Operator, even though the ‘O’ was actually the zero in the number pad. Close enough.

And now it’s 2020, and every person who is in a 311 area, can use those three digits to get help for everything from information about city services, to see if there is a volunteer in his or her neighborhood who will help her bring her trash can to the street, because at 90 years old, it’s just getting a little hard to manage the trash can. And there are lots, and lots and lots and lots of lots of lots of people out there who need this service.

But you know what 311 doesn’t have? It doesn’t have the names of volunteers who are willing to help out their neighbors. Not only do they not have the names of volunteers, but they don’t have the funding to keep names of volunteers.

But y’know what? That’s cool, because we still have the oldest way known that us neighbors can volunteer. We don’t need telephones, or Internet, or 2-meter packet radio, or semaphore flags. We just need to have a beer or a smoke or a smoothie or a chai tea or a coffee or a sugary carbonated beverage and just walk around the block and see what needs to be done. Yeah, some of the older folks might tell to get lost. But most of them are happy to talk. And when you offer to take care of shoveling snow for them, or clearing out branches, or mowing their grass, or whatever, they’ll offer you money. And most of the time, you’ll refuse, but sometimes if you take a couple bucks from them, you might help them feel a little better about using your labor to help them.

And a whole bunch of people you help may not actually need the help. But so what? That beer, that smoke, that chai tea or that smoothie, you didn’t need that either. You wanted it because it makes life better lots of time. And that person may not have really needed your help, but it was their high, to interact with you while you did the work. And some people might take advantage of you. People do that. That’s a good time to start talking about some weird disease that you just made up for the occasion.

I digress … Robbie and I made this holiday up because we both found out how much fun it is to help neighbors, and then get drink and smoke and barbecue and smoothetize with said neighbors.

It’s a good holiday, dammit!

Many young people want to help their neighbors, but often grew up with lots of social media, and not a lot of neighborhood connection. On the other hand, many elderly people can really use some help around the yard, and they are happy to work with a neighbor, but they would prefer not to accept social services.

And do we really need an excuse to have a barbecue, games, sports or beverages with our neighbors?

Neighbor Day is a great day to have fun and help out.

The Planet Earth’s first ever annual Neighbor Day is on 3/11/2020.

There are two things to do each Neighbor Day:
1. Help out a neighbor, or accept help from a neighbor.
2. Party with your neighbors.

Neighbor Day’s unique two-pronged approach allows every neighbor to do something nice for their neighbor, like clean out their rain gutters, throw out some trash, bake an apple pie, or hem a garment. And then you’ll barbecues, or have your neighbors over for a game, or get trashed in the ditch behind the houses. Some neighbors like alcohol, smoke and unhealthy food, some like to take a different path. Some like to debate politics and religion, but still hug each other afterward, and some like to pitch horseshoes, ride dirt bikes, snowmobiles or play sports.

Question: “What if I hate one of my neighbors?”

Answer: Find a way to bury the hatchet and make peace for Neighbor Day. On 3/11 of every year, you get to knock on your hated neighbor’s door and say “we have to be friends today, it’s the law.”