A neighbor or neighborly neighbor?

by Rex Clothier

In 2003 when when my bride and I decided that this piece of Wyoming would be a good place to retire, and we found a cute little place that seemed to be calling our names, and somehow, as fate would have it, circumstances worked amazingly well to allow us to enter into home ownership a couple of years before the magic date of leaving our jobs (teaching) for the idyllic life of retirement. We met the friendly older gentleman whose home bordered ours, and looked forward to becoming neighbors when we actually moved onto the property.

Sadly, when we finally arrived to take possession of our home, we found that that friendly gentleman had passed away, and our neighbors were working hard to complete the raising of their family, and planning for the life change AKAG (after kids are gone).

They were as new to us as we must have seemed to them. So, we reserved our judgement of how to establish a relationship with these new acquaintances without seeming to be pushy outsiders. Not being of the 1 percent, to say the least, we were occupied with the economics of starting a new life in a new place while working part time to help pay the bills. As Christmas approached, an occasion occurred from which this ramble arose.

Meeting the neighbor in passing one day, I wondered aloud about where one would get a Christmas tree. He wasn’t sure about in Thermop, but suggested that there were probably places in Worland or Riverton. A few days later, he hailed me from his yard and asked if I had gotten a tree. I hadn’t and told him so. He advised me to hold off for a couple of days. I thought that was kind of strange, but said I would do so. The next day he delivered a tree that just fit our needs and the season that he had found, cut down, and hauled to town.

As the years have passed, we’ve learned to depend on each other for assistance in times of need, and that raises the question about the people that surround us in this community. There exists a vast variety of life’s baggage to separate us from one another, but aren’t we richer for that variety. I am truly thankful for my neighborly neighbor.