Root River Diary | Good Neighbors

Good Neighbors
While walking down the gravel road after taking a misdelivered package to a neighbor to the north, I picked up a couple beer bottles someone had chucked out their window.
My neighbor to the south stopped to chat, and grinning, commented that I was starting early, wasn’t I?
I asked him if they’d received a notification from the mail carrier about needing to raise their mailbox. I had — and was worrying about how to go about achieving the goal of a ten-inch boost.
He said no, theirs was fine but he had recently thought about mine seeming low. He said he’d take a look at it.
I said I was afraid of saying anything to him about it, as I knew he’d say that.
He said he missed helping my late husband with projects, that he enjoyed the time they would spend together fixing things.
I said yes, I know. He drove off.
The next day the mailbox was raised.
— Bonnie Gibson, rural Peterson
The Root River Diary series features readers’ stories about our rural communities’ random acts of kindness, cultural surprises and Main Street connections that make the greater Root River Valley such an interesting and special place to live. To learn about how to submit your own original short anecdote for the Root River Diary, review our Root River Diary Guidelines or read Root River Dairy Invites Your Stories. Previous diary entries can be found on our Essays Page.