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Saturday Morning, Spring, 9:43 AM

By Chris Colcord

Fort Wayne Reader

2018-03-16

Look, I know the last thing in the world you want to do right now is talk about the weather. The Indiana sun is out for the first time in months and you just want to feel the warmth on your face, and maybe do a little damage assessment on the Winter's war on your front yard. Understood. And I know you don't feel like summoning the energy to be polite to your neighbor; that's a lot of work, especially just to engage in some idle chitchat about the weather. I get it, and actually, I kind of agree with you. To be honest, I'd rather not talk about the stupid weather, either.

But I'm afraid you're just going to have to indulge me for the next few minutes, because talking about the weather is exactly what we're gonna be doing. Right here on your porch, in the middle of March, we're gonna be talking about the weather. It'll be brief, I promise you, and when it's done I'll go back to my yard and you can stay here. But until then, man: What about that snow last week, huh? You think we'll ever see Spring this year?! Hopefully we'll get a couple of pretty weeks of it before the humidity shows up, don't you think? That'd be nice.

The reason we're doing this, by the way, is that we've both been cryogenically frozen for like 4 months and it's time to thaw out. I feel bad about that guy you've been seeing in my driveway since December, that scowling, unfriendly guy who won't even give you that little half-wave of acknowledgment every morning as we both drive to work. I've felt too cold and too old to show anything but a great grey stone face to the world, and that's just not right. It's not friendly, it's not neighborly, and I'm gonna try and make it up to you right now by getting you to talk about something that just annoys the living shit out of you.

I know, I know, but we don't really have a choice here. Because that avoidance thing, where we pretend nobody else in the world exists? It's not healthy. Too many people are too isolated and it's getting worse, and isolated people are prone to a lot of terrible things--depression, addiction, suicide. It's sort of an epidemic now. And we're going to try to do something about that. It bothers me about Halloween, how so many people in the neighborhood just left bowls of candy on their porch. Most of them were home, too. Just couldn't be bothered to answer the door, to interact with another person. Do you know what the percentage is of Americans who, in 2017, admitted that they never answer their door? Even if they knew who was ringing the bell? Do you know how high that number is?

Well, I don't either, but here's the thing: I'm not going to drag out my iPhone and find out. I'm talking to you right now, after all. You deserve my full attention. It's awkward, but sometimes you need to feel awkward. It's part of the deal. People hide behind their iPhones so they don't feel awkward and that's cheating. Better to chance looking like a dork than to look like a zombie. And so you need to answer your door. And you need to talk about the weather.

And look, this isn't easy for me, either. I'm not one of those overly friendly guys, handshakes all around, a big clap on the back, joshing and joking and poking. Those guys drive me crazy. That's not me. Sometimes I feel so awkward around people that I wonder if I have Asperger's, and I almost wish I had those little handwritten notecards to help interact with people: 1) Look people in the eye. 2) Give a firm handshake. 3) Find a neutral subject to talk about. 4) Respond with empathy. 5) Nod your head. Etc. So please know, this is an effort for me as well.

Okay, I joked about having Asperger's just now and that may have been inappropriate but my daughter has autism and I guess it's on my mind a lot. Sorry about that. I know you know that she has autism because I've seen how you react to her on the street; you're instinctively gentle around her. Thank you; it's nice to see. Most people are, by the way: when she was diagnosed I was scared, because I thought people would just get annoyed with her outbursts and her strangeness. But they don't. People seem to go out of their way to be nice to her, even absolute strangers. Teachers, neighbors. Everybody. It's amazing.

It helps me remember that people are generally decent and will do the right thing more often than not. And I guess that's why I'm here on your porch, trying to establish some bonds with small talk. A tiny bit of payback. You read stories about terrible neighbors in the news, about the petty wars and the dog poisonings and the lawsuits if an acorn rolls on the wrong property. But that's not us. It's not most people.

And man, it's nice to see our neighbors coming out of hibernation in the Spring! Everybody's in their yard, looking at the soon-to-be-budding shoots and plants. There's a Russian couple I met last year, really nice, though I barely understood a word they said. Vassilya and Lena, maybe? Even though we were strangers to them when we met they welcomed us into their home. We sat in the courtyard outside and they gave flowers to our girls. They gave me vodka, which sounds like a cliché, but it wasn't. It was wonderful. They had an old world, Russian/European hospitality and warmth that made me feel ashamed at our typical American aloofness and distrust.

So let's break the ice a little, shall we? Looks like the never-gonna-get-here Spring is finally gonna get here. You like golf, I know, and I like baseball, so it's going to be a great season. As long as that snow is finally gone, am I right? Nothing but sunshine and blue skies for the both of us.