COMMUNITY

We had some peculiar neighbors in Iowa City, but most of our current neighbors have snouts, snoods, or scent sacs. And though the old Longfellow neighborhood had a wide variety of individuals, few of them grew hind legs and molted their tails.

We have some human neighbors out here, too, but the relationships are different. You might not see them for months, but they appear when you need them.

There’s cigar guy, for example. We nod when our trucks pass. He pulled me out of the ditch several times before I got the 4WD. He lives far away but has a barn and paddock over the hill. He leaves on the radio in the barn and plays quality music for his small herd of cows. They really are some happy looking girls. Never saw him without a stubby cigar in his teeth.

To the west we have the cowboys. They’re brothers who ride horses to tend their thousand acres and thousand head of cattle. They have the requisite bathtub grotto with the Virgin Mary in their yard not too far from some sort of restraining device for castrating bulls. We've heard some terrifying bovine Hail Marys float over the hills when the steering-committee goes to work.

Another neighbor has the most astounding gray afro you’ve ever laid eyes on. It’s massive. When he’s plowing next door, it looks like some big tough grandma on the tractor. He let us know how much he wanted to tear down our "$%^&*(*" Obama sign. 

When the biggest tree in the woods was blown over, it filled our front yard and smashed our fence. I figured we’d be dealing with that all summer, but Rod from down near Wellman showed up that very day. He and his chain saw got to work and before long, the tree was gone, there were logs piled neatly in the woods nearby, and our fence was rebuilt. All this in one day. When he was done and I got out my checkbook, he shook his head. “Nope. Good day to show my son how to be a good neighbor.” Take that, State Farm.

Anna Marie-at the end of our road-is a widow who plows, herds, harvests, drives a school bus, transports Miller’s Sweet Corn to market, and creates cherry pies the whole world yearns for. She is never without a smile and a wave. Even a hug, it turns out.

The farmers in our neighborhood gather for lunch at the Reality Bar in nearby Windham. Whoever named that place was teetering between irony and misrepresentation. The old boys come in off their tractors, perch on stools, and throw down hot shots. Hot blackberry brandy shots. Makes the afternoon go better. Helps with those long, cold days full of chores. Also explains the zig-zagging corn rows and the remarkable absence of a full set of fingers on half the people in Iowa County. Some guys can’t point and many wear their wedding rings on the right hand. I bet that's why farmers don’t wave-they just raise one finger from the steering wheel when you pass each other. Not that many can flash a rude gesture, now that I think about it.

There are some unique folks in the country. I myself have some retraining to do when  we move to town. No more walking the dogs in my PJs. No more hanging out clothes in my skivvies. (I like to wash all my clothes.) Probably no exhuming cows.

In the boonies, you might not exchange two words in two years. You might have to squint hard to see the community when people live miles apart, but before you even know you’re in big trouble, they materialize in pickups and on 4-wheelers and tractors, and you know it's there.