Good Neighbors


My neighbors are amazing. I won the benevolent & hilarious neighbor lottery. Kevin and Darlene have eclipsed my previous neighbor expectations.

You know that quote about "Good fences make good neighbors" from Robert Frost? No? If you're not a Robert Frost nut, do you even New England, bro?

Please at least go read this poem, "Mending Wall"  so you can superciliously "well actually" someone the next time they mis-represent the quote about good fences and good neighbors.

A pedantic aside, please humor me here. We'll get back to Kevin & Darlene in a minute. Like many Frost quotes, people often quote this in complete misunderstanding of the actual point of his poem. In "Mending Wall," Frost describes the annual repair of the stone walls separating his land from that of his neighbor, and how he sometimes questions his neighbor about whether the wall is even needed.

"My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him."

And the quote everyone is fond of is actually found in the neighbor's repeated reply:

"He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’"

Frost's position is actually that fences should only be built for a reason, not just to separate things arbitrarily, but with his customary resignation he helps the neighbor build back the wall anyway, because that is what is done. In New England.

Back to MY neighbors. So I arrived here with my camper and no water or electricity etc etc due to construction delays currently plaguing the entire country - pandemic covid etc etc etc. But while I was making arrangements, my builder clued me in that my neighbors are angelic beings of mercy who are allowing his tree guy to drive up their driveway and into the back of my lot, so they can clear trees without attempting to create a temporary driveway, which saves a ton of time.

Well not only are they letting him use their driveway for giant lumber trucks, but they are now letting me park my rental car in their driveway, giving me great advice on various camper know-how, and the crowning benevolence of all neighborly relations - they've allowed us to hook a 30 amp connection from their electrical box into the camper. We. Have. Air. Conditioning.

Romex cabling (30 amp for the camper = customer extension cords will not work - you need an electrician for that ish) is my new love language. Thanks Kevin & Darlene, you are prince/princesses amongst New Englanders. <3

PS: Stone wall nerds - walls are protected and mapped in New Hampshire. For more info:

PS: Camper / Electrician nerds - this is basically what's gone on here:
Disclaimer: literally do not DIY this. An electrician can save you a lot of pain here.

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