Sunshine, Neighbours, and All that Jazz…

Sunshine, Neighbours, and All that Jazz… - theHumm July 2019

By — Angie Arendt is the Director of Big Stone House: a Center for Courageous Living in Almonte <bigstonehouse.ca>

It was the middle of August and the middle of the day. The sun was shining bright, the dog was attempting to cool down on the tile floor, and I was chopping watermelon in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. I peeked around the corner and saw my neighbor standing on the front porch. He was a tiny man — probably only ninety pounds dripping wet with a shock of white hair, his shoulders hunched over by life — who lived two doors down in an equally tiny, slightly hunched white clapboard house in the middle of a postage stamp-sized yard. Over the years I would see him out with his reel lawn mower or red-handled snow shovel early in the morning or late in the evening, and once in a blue moon I’d get a daytime sighting as he carried a bag of groceries in from the rusty ’70s-era Chevy Caprice parked on the pea gravel drive next to his house. Whenever I saw him, I’d wave and say hello. Whenever he saw me (or anyone else, for that matter) he would scurry into the house like a rabbit and wait until the coast was clear before coming back out to finish what he’d started. It went on like that for thirteen years… and now he was standing on my front porch ringing the doorbell. I didn’t even know his name.

I opened the door and smiled. “Hello,” I said, and he immediately looked at his feet. “Hi,” he answered. We stood there for a long time in silence before he looked up and off in the distance. “I’m John. I live over there,” he shared, nodding toward his house. “I’m wondering about your cat — the yellow and white one. I haven’t seen her lately and I hope she’s OK.”

Unfortunately, the cat he was asking about was not OK. Three weeks earlier while I was out of town at a conference, Sunshine-the-cat had been hit by a car in front of the house and died. As I told John the details of what had happened, his clear blue eyes filled with tears and his already stooped posture sunk a little lower. “Do you want to come in?” I asked. “Sure. Just for a minute, though…” He sat on the edge of the chair closest to the door and let the tears fall, not scurrying anywhere for a moment.

“She sure was a great cat,” he finally said, wiping his nose with a well-worn blue hanky that he pulled out of his back pocket. “Rain or shine, she’d show up at my kitchen door almost every day and let out a loud meow. If I didn’t open the door right away, she’d hop up on the windowsill and tap with that deformed paw of hers.” He paused to blow his nose and chuckled. “We had this routine: I’d let her in, put on some jazz and get her some tuna. When she was done eating we’d sit on the couch together. I’d tell her what to listen for in the music and give her a little history on the musicians — I know it seems silly, but I liked talking to her and she was a good listener. After an hour or two, she’d wander to the door and scratch. I’d say, ‘See you tomorrow…,’ and she’d head home across the yard. I watched to be sure she made it there OK.” He paused to look at the yard and sighed. “I haven’t seen her for awhile and thought maybe something happened, so I thought I’d check.” And then he looked right at me for the first time and said, “What was her name? I never knew…”

“Sunshine,” I whispered as the tears spilled down my face. Here I thought that she spent her afternoons hunting mice in the back shed or lazing in the yard under the walnut tree. I had no idea that she had this whole other life two doors down.

“Sunshine,” he smiled. “She sure was. Yes, she was…” He stood up and patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sorry about your cat. I won’t bother you anymore…” And off he went; across the yard to his tiny little house, all alone.

Two days later, John was standing on my front porch when I came home from work. He looked sheepish — I don’t think he planned on seeing me — and turned down my invitation to come in. He said he was just stopping by to drop off a little something: a CD he’d burned for me. “These were her favourites: Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and Miles Davis. I would have included Wynton Marsalis on there, too — we listened to him a lot — but she really preferred the oldies. I hope you like it.” I did like it. A lot.

As far as I know, John didn’t ever wander back onto my front porch. And I never made my way to his kitchen door. But from that day on, we’d smile and wave a few times a week when we saw each other out in the yard and even stop to chat now and again about the weather, the happenings in the neighborhood, and about jazz. It made us both smile.

The Ladies’ Foursome
Teeing Up for July 4th Opening at Studio Theatre - theHumm July 2019

By — Paul Joyce

It’s that time of year again, when the rattle of expensive metal is heard coming from car trunks and when spouses disappear for hours at a time, reappearing with sunburns, bug bites, and either smiles, scowls, or looks of quiet resignation.

Yes, it’s golf season.

For the final show of its 2018/19 series of plays, Studio Theatre Perth presents The Ladies’ Foursome, a Norm Foster comedy that will make you love the game, even if you, well, currently hate your game.

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Sunshine, Neighbours, and All that Jazz… - theHumm July 2019