Letters to the Editor
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@ know1uknow & noneofmybusiness
Great comments from both of you. Before getting all interfering (and annoying) neighborly, make sure you have your elderly neighbor's consent. If you don't have it, back away. Get to know her as a human being, heck befriend her, not as lady bountiful, but as someone who lives next door. Oh, and I hate the Oleander Lady even though I like Oleanders (they're pretty and I never ate one while visiting friends in the South as a child), too, but I wouldn't pick a fight with her on behalf of someone who doesn't want to live in a war zone (and who probably doesn't want my interference). But that's just me.
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letter writers changing their minds
Cary,
I'm surprised you honor requests from LWs who beg you not to publish their letters. I'm not aware of any other advice columnists who do this. If people need to write about how they feel without getting feedback about it, they can type it up in a file, or write it in a notebook, and burn that page (or a printout) if what they wrote is too toxic. I would think anyone who writes to you for advice must know on some level that what he/she wrote could be published for the world to see.
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violation and vanity
First, isn't this issue (class boundaries and gentrification) exactly the same as the one in this week's Law & Order episode? Seems like there's a lot of that going around in the good ol' US of A. Some of the responses hint at an underlying anxiety around the epidemic in plummeting real esate values, and I kind of think they're on to something. But that doesn't mean that other values should go out the window.
Like, for example, common decency. Planting the oleander hedge was an act of violation (a rape analogy might be too strong, but violation nontheless), and "peeps" was right: call the police and find out what laws have been violated (property rights are about 9/10s of the law, so there is bound to be something pretty concrete). Find out what charges could, hypothetically, be laid. Armed with this information take the high road and *do not* immediately haul the police into it, but use this information (about legal recourse) as a bargaining chip.
Go to the elderly nonwhite neighbour lady, and tell her that the renegade oleander-planter not only confessed that it was she who had paid her gardener (an undocumented migrant, perhaps?) to plant the hedge, but actually asked if you would contribute to the cost. Tell her that you found this offensive, given that the hedge was planted against the property owner's will, and that now that you've been dragged into this frey you'd like to help. Ask if the old lady *likes* the oleander hedge... and present your excellent suggestion, that the nice healthy plants could perhaps be redeployed to a location that would please the family on whose land they were placed (and to whom they now clearly belong). If your nice nonwhite neighbour likes this suggestion, tell the jerk (on Law & Order they actually typified the obnoxious gentrifier as a bigot) that if she is willing to move the oleander hedge to the desired location, you will drop your desire to help the old lady press criminal (or whatever -- remember, private property was violated and so there most certainly is legal recourse!) charges. Maybe this will work. Maybe it won't. But it's worth a try.
The other violation -- that of the nice old non-white lady's pride -- will be harder to heal. Still, it's worth trying. Invite the nice neighbour over to have a nice glass of iced tea on your porch and tell her that you really, truly were sincere when you and your husband offered to help her and her son with yard work. Tell her that you are happy to respect her wishes, but are *not* happy sitting back and letting the renegade oleander planter continue to bully her (the world "bully" also came up in the Law & Order episode). Say that you aren't offering to totally relandscape her yard -- that would take too much time and money! -- but that it really isn't a hassle to (for example), mow the extra patch of lawn on her plot when you've already gone through the hassle of hauling out the lawnmower to do your own yard. Tell her that once you've hauled out the paraphenalia to prune your own trees and bushes it really isn't a big deal to do a quick job on hers (at least the ones that are near your property line). Remind her that it's okay for neighbours to help neighbours, that's just being "neighbourly." And maybe suggest that if she balks at "taking" from you and your husband, you'd be glad to swap a bit of yardwork for (perhaps) and evening of babysitting.
And the next time you see the gardiner, ask if he is aware that the recipient of his carefully-planted oleander hedge didn't actually want it. My guess is that he might not feel too good about it.
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well, that explains it...
Hi Cary,
Thanks for explaining why the previous letter disappeared. You obviously did the right thing. Maybe you could post your response in a more obvious place though- page 16 of the "Oleanders" letters section is a non-intuitive place to look.
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"It is like a little short story from the South."
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
I certainly hope, Cary, you are not insinuating that petty class struggles such as the one described in that letter are more prevalent in the American South than in other parts of the country - that Southerners are more prone to hickish feuding and squabbling than, say, level-headed love-thy-neighborly Manhattanites or Los Angelenos. Is that what you mean?
As someone who no longer lives (or has never lived? I think you've written before about having been raised in some part of the South, but I'm not sure) in the American South, you need to be circumspect when making statements such as this. Ask yourself these questions: Does your statement smack of regionalism? Are you participating in belittling and bashing the American South, a long-practiced tradition in other parts of the country that is sanctioned by many of even the most liberal intellectual rank and file of the Northern and West Coast commentariat (I guess everyone has to feel better than someone, huh?)?
Oh, Lord, I'm so disappointed. I'm such a fan. Please don't let me down. Please tell me you can honestly, with a clear conscience, answer "no" to those questions. Please tell me that even on a subconscious level those things aren't true.
Please tell me you are simply comparing the letter writer's compositional style and subject matter to those of great Southern writers like Carson McCullers or Flannery O'Connor, and the story is "little" because it is precious, tied up in a ribbon and presented to us for our consideration, a disposable little parable, just like a short story by Katherine Anne Porter.
Of course, this would also be quite far off the mark.
You can probably tell I'm a native Southerner and somewhat sensitive to generalizations about my home. The South has long been held up as an example of entrenched ignorance, racism, and brutishness in this country. However, this is not because these traits are more prevalent in Southerners than they are in Northerners or Midwesterners or folks on the West Coast (I know - I've lived all over); it's just that they might be (or historically might have been) more apparent or more easily detected in Southerners.