When I was young, I used to love Mr. Rogers. You know, \it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood"" and all that jazz. But in all my afternoons of listening to Mr. Rogers talk about neighbors, he never once mentioned hockey sticks.
Yes, hockey sticks. Normally reserved for pushing a puck around an ice rink, this routine sporting good has become a fixture in my neighborhood, because when my neighbors hear something they don't like, they use their hockey sticks to let me know.
I can't even listen to music at 2:30 in the afternoon without them pounding on my floor/their ceiling. Last week, my roommate got it for moving around in his room too much.
It's an unfortunate circumstance that has left me questioning the whole Mr. Rogers ""friendly neighbor"" concept for the first time since I was in the third grade.
You're probably asking yourself, ""I wonder what happened to Joe in third grade?"" Well, I'm glad you asked, because I'm dying to tell you.
Through no fault of my own, I found myself right in the middle of one of south central Wisconsin's biggest elementary school scandals of the early 90s. It all started when my teacher, Mrs. Putnam, arranged the class into little communities of four desks, so that each student had three neighbors.
One of my neighbors was a kid named Jason, who-in addition to having the misfortune of sharing several physical characteristics with our school mascot, Herbie the Beaver-spent most of his class time drawing.
And while my artistic efforts at that time were spent drawing dinosaurs and football helmets, Jason liked to draw everyday, normal people. More specifically, he liked to draw everyday, normal people having sex, usually in the back of a car.
All was fine and dandy-him with his naked people, me with my dinosaurs-until he decided to plant one of his pictures in my desk. Mrs. Putnam found the picture and blew a gasket. Jason denied any involvement, leaving me to rot with Principal Ladds and his awful mullet-perm for the rest of the afternoon.
I eventually cleared my name and avoided any serious punishment, but as you might imagine, the whole event left me very suspicious of anyone claiming to be my ""neighbor.""
Which brings me back to my current neighbors and their hockey sticks. (In case you were wondering, I know they use hockey sticks, because I've seen them carrying the sticks into the building. At first, I was afraid to write about them, but my friend Deek assured me hockey players can't read. If he's wrong about this, I've got bigger things to worry about than how loud my music is.)
Anyway, you may not see the connection between the hockeystick neighbors and the naked-picture neighbor, but I assure you, it's there.
Neighbors are supposed to be nice people who lend you sugar and wave to you on the street. They don't have to be your friends, but the least they can do is fake it. I'm pretty sure if I ever tried to talk to my neighbors, I'd end up with a hockey stick in my abdomen.
Nobody deserves that. Nobody, that is, except Jason from Mrs. Putnam's third grade class.
Joe can be reached at jphasler@wisc.edu
