We just moved into a new home. It’s in a new subdivision of a new community. Theoretically, this will be a house in which we can “age in place”. There are restaurants, a gym, a medical center – all within a short walk – and the promise of more to come. Our house has two floors, but with a first-floor master bedroom popular with the folks in the demographic we are undeniably approaching. We have opted to use the master for another purpose and will sleep upstairs for the next few years. Otherwise, we’d be making use of what the marketers are calling “single-level living”. We don’t mind stairs at this point; perhaps someday we will.
Our neighborhood is much more concentrated than the sprawling suburban development we left. Our neighbors are nearby and very nice, similar to us in age and stage of life. We are responsible for no landscape work and I gave the lawnmower away before we moved.
Across the street lives a retired couple, Cynthia and Carl, who moved in before our house was finished. We met them on one of our trips to look over the construction of our house. They are very nice.
Lion eyes (Photo credit: cynicalview)
One day, we saw that they had placed two very large concrete lions in the front flower bed. We were a little taken aback when we first saw them, but they seem like nice people and we got used to their lions.
A couple of months after we moved in, I answered a knock at the door and was met by a clipboard-wielding Cynthia. She asked that I sign a petition stating that we didn’t object to the lions. At this point, I was almost fond of them and thought they were kinda cool in a funny sort of way. I imagined that Cynthia and Carl might put Santa hats on them for Christmas. We continued to like Cynthia and Carl, so the lions really didn’t bother us at all. Apparently, they bothered the architectural review board of the homeowners association, so Cynthia was preparing evidence that her neighbors supported their wish to keep them in place. I gladly signed.
Cynthia and Carl lost. The board said the lions must go.
Jeanne and I wondered if this was really fair. We felt bad for Cynthia and Carl, but we realize we’re now in a community that must maintain a certain degree of appropriateness. Jeanne said pink flamingos definitely would be inappropriate. “How about a policy that ‘concrete sculptures are allowed but colorful plastic decorations are not’?” she suggested. I said, “What if the concrete sculpture did not depict lions but, say, clowns?” We agreed it had to be on a case-by-case basis. In the meantime, perhaps Cynthia and Carl will relocate the lions to their patio. They say they want to move now. I know they’re angry and I hope it will pass. I understand how they feel.
I once had a childhood friend named Warren whose family had large concrete planters prominently placed on their front porch. The planters had swastikas on them. (When I related this to Jeanne, she looked at me incredulously.) The swastikas were raised from the flat surface and centered on each of the four sides of each planter. Eight swastikas in all. No turning the pots around to hide them. I always imagined – or maybe I was told – that they were from the early 1900s before swastikas symbolized the Nazi movement. I believe it was originally an Egyptian design. Whatever their origin, we always made Warren be German when we played army. He never argued. We figured even he saw the inescapable logic of that requirement.
Warren’s family never seemed to think that the planters were inappropriate – even as late as the 1980s. Buchanan had only one Jewish family in my memory and I believe they had gone by the 80s. Even so, it seems like the WWII veterans living in town who knew first-hand the horrors of that conflict would have made an issue of the planters.
When that house was sold, the new owners removed the planters. By my estimation, the planters had been in place for at least 50 years. I think a homeowners association would have acted more quickly.
jjacksonsite 