BURKARD'S BLOG

28 APR 03: WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?

I went for an evening walk around South Commons last night - and as I returned to the apartment complex, children were playing in the grassy courtyard. Suddenly I heard a mother's voice say, "Get your a** over here." Do they have female drill instructors at Fort Benning's basic training now?

I normally don't do things like this, but I decided the mother was talking to me - so I walked over to where she sat on a porch and said, "OK, I'm here." After all, children aren't addressed in rough language like hers. Well, then again, I don't watch "The Sopranos."

Once I walked over to the woman's porch, she and a couple of other people just stared at me as if I was a weirdo. Perhaps it was because I responded to her call, and none of the children did. [True!]

Finally a man in a neighboring apartment clarified - that woman using the "A" word was not calling me. "Oh, OK," I said and walked into my own apartment. I seriously doubt the woman got the message I was trying to send, about her use of
language around children. Then again, I'm not sure a tough-talking TV judge could get through to her, either.

This week I mark six years in this apartment complex - and I can't help noticing the folks on the opposite side of the courtyard from me never invite me over to their outdoor cookouts. Could it be they're simply shy? They've already invited other friends over? Or could it be that I'm the only non-African-American person in the complex, and they suspect I'm a police informant?

To be fair, I've never invited other people in the complex to my apartment. For one thing, I don't have a grill for outdoor cooking. For another thing, I've inherited so much furniture over the years that the fire code limit on people might be three.

Spring cleaning helps me clear away the piles of things around my apartment. Yesterday I finally put together a six-foot-tall torchiere pole lamp from Penney's, that I bought seven years ago! This lamp is SO OLD it's a forest green color -- and you may remember when that was a popular color for cars.

Are you a reader of this blog? If you are, please e-mail me. It gets lonely doing this by myself.