LOVE FROM THE HAROLDS

Shortly after moving to Rochester, New York in 1982, I met my next door neighbor, Harold. He had to be 85 years old if he was a day back then, so I am sure he has long gone on to join his wife in their heavenly reward. He lived to the right of my house, with a large detached garage out back. A giant black walnut tree rested between his house and mine, and the kids would play around that tree as he watched from his back porch. He would give them a penny for every black walnut collected from the ground. You would never know we lived on a busy city street, with all the harvesting going on.

Harold had an only son, also named Harold, but they called him “Mike”. “Mike” was a sign painter, and a good one at that. He would work out of the detached garage, painting and buildings signs. He had a distinctive style of painting the letters; you always knew which sign was “Mikes” when you drove down the street. It was a time where one could exist and be happy just doing what he wanted after retirement.

“Mike” had never married; I surmised it might have been because he had somewhat of a drinking problem. He was retired from someplace where the pension money was lucrative and his expenses were fairly low. The money he brought in from sign painting was enough to support both his habit and put a little aside for a rainy day.

I didn’t talk much to the two Harolds, since the older spent most of the time in the house during the week, and the other in the detached garage. On most weekends, the older Harold would take a cab to visit his girlfriend, Mabel, who lived in the nursing home in a suburb, and where they allowed him to spend the night. It seems he and Mabel had been quite an item back in the day, she being the other woman and all. Harold the younger would spend his time in the garage, drinking and painting, painting and drinking. He said his mother never knew about Mabel, but I told him I thought perhaps she did. She died one fall afternoon before I had moved there, and only knew of her through pictures. She never smiled in any of them.

I got it into my head after a couple of months that the two Harolds might be pretty lonely, especially around holiday time. They didn’t get much company and it didn’t appear young Harold was dating anyone. I started inviting them over for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and it became a tradition that continued until the end. There they would sit, the two Harolds, side by side at the dining room table, in a room already jammed pack with 3 high chairs and folding chairs on either side. Grandparents on either side of my family lived too far away for regular visits, and so my children enjoyed the company of the two surrogates for the short time they would stay.

One Christmas, I received a holiday greeting card from the younger Harold. On the inside of the card he had painstakingly written in his distinctive neat hand an inscription which clearly portrayed the way he felt about our friendship and the family. It was written in gold pen and signed simply “Love from the Harolds.”

Touched by such thoughtfulness, I immediately framed the quote he had shared from his heart with me, and kept it on the mantle or a high shelf in whatever home we lived, even after everyone had grown up and I was living alone. Anyone who read it could not recall the writer who penned it, but agreed it was a heartfelt response to witnessing the growth of a family.

Sadly, young Harold died before the older, drinking himself into a stupor one day and never waking up. My family out grew the little house in the city and we moved to another house on the other side of town. The invitation for holiday dinners was still open to Harold the older, but it just wasn’t the same, he said.

Sunlight and years have faded the gold ink of the inscription inside the little frame. I looked at it today, and realized that I could google the owners name to see what else he had written. When I originally received the quote the only way was to go to the library and look for the name, something a busy mother of five had no time to do.

I was able to find the name, and also the one book he had written. I bought it on ebay for $2.95. It costs more to ship it than to buy it. But it is price less to me.

Taking a sharp blue pen, I slowly outlined the fading letters, perhaps really reading for the first time the words a tortured soul had shared with me all those years ago. Like everything else in my life, I don’t see the significance of things until years later.

Rest in peace, my two friends, the Harold’s. Thank you for a cherished gift from the heart.

“Home Sweet Home: The home provides the vision we shall have of other races and people. It is the lens through which we get out first look at marriage and all civic duties. It is the clinic whereby we learn conversation and attitude. Impressions are created with respect to sobriety and reverence. It is the school where lessons of truth or falsehood, honesty or deceit are learned. It is the mold which ultimately determines the structure of society.” Perry F. Webb