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Life Arts    H4'ed 1/15/23

A city boy's tips on country etiquette

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By Bob Gaydos

For most of my life, I've lived in small cities (Bayonne, Binghamton, Annapolis, Middletown) and one large town (Wallkill), which is really a mall-dotted highway surrounded by housing complexes. Throw in a few years living on college campuses. Basically, it's been city or community living.

When you live with a lot of other people close by and you want to be relatively content, you learn the rules of the road, the do's and don'ts of getting along. Mostly, it's mind your own business and don't make a lot of noise.

A few years ago, I moved to the country, a bit of upstate New York between the Hudson River and the Catskills that is often protected from major weather issues by the imposing Shawangunk Ridge.

Country living means owls, woodpeckers, coyotes and starry skies, oh my.

It's nice. Well, usually. It's quiet. Usually. In any case, it most definitely has its own rules of the road. Things a transplanted city boy ought to know. Something I call country etiquette.

The notion (see how I used the word "notion" instead of "idea"?) that there was such a thing as country etiquette grew out of a recent conversation about a not uncommon country experience.

A couple of years ago, our quiet summer evening at home was disrupted by a loud squealing of tires and a loud thud. Right in front of our house.

We rushed out to find a car sitting in a culvert in front of our house, a distraught young woman sitting behind the wheel and our mailbox on the ground, post and all. I don't recall who called 911, but state police arrived quickly, talked with the driver (who was shaken but not hurt), someone called a tow truck, we went back in the house and eventually everything was back to normal, except for the mailbox. Its career was over.

In short order, we replaced the mailbox and occasionally wondered what happened to the young driver. I suspected alcohol may have been involved.

A couple of weeks later, the whole scene repeated itself. Nighttime. Squeal. Thud. Car. Culvert. Young woman driver. Unhurt. Mailbox kaput.

Deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once said. Same follow up. Police. Tow truck. Mailbox flattened.

Again, we replaced it and the new one has survived ever since. But here's the thing. Neither driver offered to pay to replace the mailbox (they both got out of their cars and talked to us) or to have it repaired. Now, it seems to me that a basic rule of country etiquette ought to be that if you wipe out someone's mailbox (and get caught at it), the decent thing to do is to make it right again. Pay for a new one.

And that's what got me thinking about other rules of country etiquette. What are some things to help someone new get along with neighbors who may not live right next door? Here's what I've come up with so far:

" Having a handy supply of eggs is nice, but keep your chickens in your own yard as much as possible. Free range doesn't mean the whole neighborhood, or, especially, the busy road.

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Bob Gaydos is a veteran of 40-plus years in daily newspapers. He began as police reporter with The (Binghamton, N.Y.) Sun-Bulletin, eventually covering government and politics as well as serving as city editor, features editor, sports editor and (more...)
 

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