Life in the 'hood

One day into our glorious four-day weekend, and it's clear the theme of this holiday is: Noisy.

Three quick stories:

The Whistler Goes to Jail

The Whistler has been trying to live a good life, as far as we could tell. But Thursday night it all went to hell.

For years, we knew him as a mysterious thug who rode his bike to our park, stood in the grass, stared up at the triplex that we like to call the Meth House, and whistled. A piercing, jarring whistle that set Riley and Boscoe to barking and sometimes jolted us out of our sleep. He whistled at all times of the day and night.

Who was he? What did he want? We suspected drugs, and we weren't entirely wrong. It turned out that he was in love with Corinna, the stocky blond woman who lived on the Meth House top floor. He whistled to get her attention, though why he didn't just call on a cell like everyone else in the world is something we cannot answer. It also turned out that he was in repeated trouble with the law--sometimes for drugs--and that he expressed his love for Corinna in ways that often resulted in restraining orders.

A year ago, he calmed down. He moved into the meth house and became quite the model citizen. He shoveled snow in the winter, with a swagger, and mowed his grass in the summer. He somehow acquired a green minivan. I wondered how long this transformation could last, and I've been impressed that it lasted as long as it did.

Thursday night, things went south. Doug and I were sitting on the back porch when we heard the Whistler's shouts, and Corinna's screams. A thud or two. "Get out of my house, get out of my house, get out of my houuuuuuuuuuse!" Cops showed up. The Whistler ran.

Brave man, that.

Friday morning he was back, swaggering down the alley in his undershirt and mirrored sunglasses. The cops were there within seconds--two squad cars, parked so hastily they were at odd angles to the curb and other cars had to gingerly inch around them.

I was upstairs, reading, when I heard a shout that was both angry and plaintive. One word: Corinna! Over and over again. I looked out the window and there he stood, sunglasses atop his head, the polarized blue flashing in the July sunshine. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and a cop stood close on either side. He did not look at the cops. He did not move. He stared urgently toward the Meth House and shouted. Corinna!

Corinna did not appear. It was, in its own way, heartbreaking. Eventually, the cops stuffed him in the back seat and drove off. Ah. Independence Day, but not for him.

All was quiet then, until....

Firecrackers All Day and All Night

The firecrackers started in midafternoon. These were the ones that are set off for sound alone--a jolting, heart-stopping Bang! Over and over again. You can imagine how much Riley appreciated this. We grilled kabobs in the back yard, with the boys lounging next to us on the porch. But with every frequent Bang!, Riley would hop up, trot into the kitchen, and hide under the table.

See you later, Doug said each time.

After a while Riley would cautiously emerge, only to be sent inside again by the next Bang!

Around 11 p.m., teenagers began setting off rockets and bombs in the trees right across the street. They were as close as they could be to us without being in our yard. Whoosh! Bang! Bam! Riley had long since vanished; he was quivering in the basement bathroom, where he stayed all night.

Boscoe, who knew the basement wasn't an option, shook and paced, bolting from room to room with each explosion. I shut the windows and turned on fans, but they were just too close. We could hear it all.

And now, this morning....

Here Come the Hmong

It's 8:30 a.m., and there are no parking places left on our street. It is lined with minivans and SUVs, parked tightly on either side. A steady stream of festival-goers flows past our house. They carry coolers, big umbrellas and folding chairs. Moms and dads have five, six, seven, eight, nine children in tow; the Hmong are known for their big families.

The traffic is inconvenient, but we love the Hmong. They fought hard for the United States during the VietNam war. They are a gentle, rural people who lived and farmed in the mountains of Laos. They had no written language until just about fifty years ago. The men had reputations as being fierce fighters. The CIA enlisted them to take part in a covert war against the North Vietnamese, and they fought fiercely on our behalf.

When the war ended, the U.S. largely abandoned them. Some got out. Many did not; they stayed behind in the jungles, where they have been persecuted ever since by the Communists. Thousands landed in refugee camps in Thailand, where they lived for years and years, their lives on hold.

Every Fourth of July, the Hmong in America hold a festival in our park. Ten thousand Hmong show up, from all over the country. They have music, and food, and the women sell their beautiful hand-stitched story cloths. Traditionally, these wall hangings told stories of their past and their culture, but the women in the camps encorporated new stories into their art--helicopters, soldiers, guns.

At the festival, they play soccer and kato. Kato is wonderful to watch--the object is to bat a small woven ball over a net, as in volleyball, but without using your hands. You can use your arms, your head, your legs, your feet, but no hands. It's fluid and athletic. Sometimes in the days leading up to the festival, we see Hmong people in odd corners of the park, practicing their kato moves.

And now it is nearly 9 a.m., and the noises are drifting over from the festival. The tinny Asian music. The PA announcer, calling out game information in a language I cannot understand. Riley and Boscoe are not big fans of the festival--the morning walking route has to change, and they are not used to so many people on our block. But the aftermath! Oh, once the orange fencing is taken down and the PA is dismantled and the Hmong have loaded up their minivans and driven off....they leave behind a wonderful wealth of chicken bones in the grass.

The boys can hardly wait.

A note on the photos: Top photo taken last night by my brother, in Clear Lake, Iowa.

Second photo taken by me, this morning, of a family in the park headed to the festival.

I did not take any pictures of the Whistler pleading for Corinna, though I easily could have. It was right in front of our house.