I've always had a soft spot for television shows from
overseas. Be it "EastEnders",
"All Saints", or "Are You Being Served?", I have always
loved a good Britcom or Aussie drama.
Sometimes when I go on sites like YouTube, I watch episodes of
foreign television shows, and one time, I came across old episodes of a
television show I used to watch on a cable channel called YTV.
It was a show called “Home and Away”, and basically the premise
was that a young couple who couldn't have children of their own decided to have
foster children to fill the void. The patriarch of the Fletcher family had lost
his job in the big city, and the family made the decision to move to a small
town called Summer Bay, where they would take over running a caravan park,
where vacationers could stay for low cost.
It was 20 years since I last saw an episode of this show, so
imagine my surprise when I not only found the show online, but later discovered
that it was still airing new episodes in its native Australia. I have no idea
what it's currently like now, but one thing that amazed me about the show was
the general sense of community that the townspeople of Summer Bay had for each
other. When the Fletchers first moved to town, they took in a rebellious stray
girl named Bobby, who eventually became their sixth foster child. A storyline
where animals were poisoned brought outrage in the community...so much so that
the townspeople tried to work together to find out who was responsible. When
Tom Fletcher quit his job because of some unsavory remarks about his foster
daughter by his boss, the rest of his team backed Tom up. It's that community
spirit that I think made me gravitate towards the show. Unlike American soap
operas where everyone tries to one-up each other, or have affairs with each
other, or plots to murder each other, Home and Away showed warmth, generosity,
and heart. Oh, sure, the show also had mystery, murder, and controversial
storylines, but the way the stories were told brought these issues to light in
realistic ways. If any of you get a chance, check out some of the episodes,
because they really are fantastic to watch...well, provided you can ignore the
really bad 1980's music, that is.
Apparently, there's another show that currently airs in
Australia that is somewhat like Home and Away, but instead takes place in a
residental neighbourhood known as Ramsay Street. Appropriately enough, the show
happens to be called “Neighbours”, and the show's theme song is where the title
of this note comes from.
Admittedly, I do not know as much about Neighbours as I do Home
and Away, because Neighbours never aired in Canada (at least not to my
knowledge anyways). I do know that it started the careers of singers Kylie
Minogue, Natalie Imbruglia, and Delta Goodrem, and was a key launchpad for the
acting careers of Jesse Spencer and Guy Pearce. I also know that as previously
mentioned that the show took place on Ramsay Street, and that the six or so
houses on the street were where most of the main characters of the show had
their actions. It was where neighbours had cups of coffee with other
neighbours. It was where neighbours gossiped to their neighbours about other
neighbours. Heck, I can probably imagine that it was a place where neighbours
did the horizontal mambo with other neighbours.
And, this total rambling about television programs that no
longer air in Canada does have a point. This note is all about the people in
your neighbourhood, in your neighbourhood, in your neighbourhood...
Neighbours. We all have them. Some of them are friendly and
outgoing. Some of them are reclusive. Some of them are nosy, and some of them
are just bitchy.
You have your eccentric Kimmy Gibbler type neighbours. You have
your sugary sweet Pamela Poole type neighbours. And, you have your Marcy D'Arcy
type neighbours who don't like you, and who you don't like, but you put up with
anyways because you can't afford to move.
I know that the neighbours in my apartment building are quite
the crazy cast of characters. In the eleven years I've been there, I've seen it
all. Single moms and their children. Elderly couples living out their golden
years. The crazy lady across the hall who has yard sales for cigarette money
and who sells home-cooked meals to other people so she could buy lottery
tickets.
(In regards to that last neighbour I described, yes, she does
exist, and yes, she still lives across the hall).
I guess if I were to describe my own level of neighbourly
kindness towards people who live near me, I tend to be a little bit on the
reclusive side. I mean, sure, if they talk to me, I'll acknowledge them (unless
I really, really dislike them - see lady across the hall from me), but I don't
really go out of my way.
I'm not sure exactly why that's the case now, but a lot of the
people who live in my building are people who I don't really gel with, so
there's not really any sort of need to associate with them. And, really, I'm
fine with that. I mean, who wants to have people gossiping about your daily
business, right? And, in the seven years I've lived in this building, I've
gotten to know who those very people are, and have made it a mission to try and
avoid them. I'm much happier and stress free as a result of it.
That's not to say that all of the neighbours I've had have been
that...um...peppery and jaded.
In one of the first houses I remember living in, my neighbours
were a young family who had two kids. The girl, Brandi, was my age, and the
boy, Brandon, was about two years older, maybe three. We got along great and I
can remember having many water balloon wars with them as a child in my
backyard. Those were good times. Unfortunately, we were separated for a few
years because some developer bought all the houses on the street and knocked
them down to put up a parking lot. That moment of my childhood could best be
described by that Joni Mitchell song “Big Yellow Taxi”. The part about them
paving paradise to put up a parking lot. I loved 35 St. Paul Street, and had it
not been for that developer, in all likelihood I would still be living there.
Fortunately, I was reunited with Brandi twice...once in fourth
grade, and then again in seventh grade. I haven't seen her since we were
thirteen though.
Then we moved to the neighbourhood that was a block away from
the local hospital. A neighbourhood I lived in from the age of five to the age
of nineteen. A neighbourhood that was filled with elderly people due to its
proximity of the hospital. I was the only child on the whole street.
However, the people on the street were nice enough for the most
part. There were a couple of people who were kind of psycho (and I'm
specifically referring to you, you across the street hoodlums and your demon
dog named Sparky that you purposely sent across the street to make dinner out
of my leg!), but some people were really, really nice.
At that time, I lived in house number eleven on the street. The man over at number 15 was pretty cool.
The man across the street at number 12 was all right too, even though I wasn't
fond of his wife. The elderly lady over at number 30 was a real sweetheart. Her
name was Sarah, and I remember that on Halloween, she usually kept her doors
closed, and her lights shut off. There weren't really a lot of kids on my
street, so as a result, trick-or-treaters weren't all that plentiful. Sure, we
had lots of kids from nearby streets, and of course we'd have the “way too old
to trick-or-treat” teenagers from the high school who would trick or treat in
their football uniforms from the nearby high school. But, her house was never
lit up on Halloween night, so her house was always skipped on my
trick-or-treating route.
And, yet, the very next day after, when I was on my way to
school, she would try and spot me, and she'd hand me a specially made loot bag
that she had done up for me for Halloween. I later found out that she had only
done that for me, since I was the only kid on the street, and since my parents
were always nice with her. She really was a nice lady, and I thought the world
of her. Another nice guy on the street that I remember was the man who lived
over at number 42. He always had some cool stories to tell, and I think he kind
of liked the idea of there being a kid on the street, since as I said before,
there weren't a whole lot of us. He passed away when I was about eleven or
twelve, and when I heard the news, I actually cried.
So, as you can see, even though there was hardly anyone near my
age on my own street, somehow, I made it work to my advantage. Considering how
badly I was picked on in school, perhaps it was a good thing that I didn't
really know anyone from my school who lived on that street.
Thankfully, I've never really had any psycho neighbours, so I
can't really entertain you with those kinds of stories. But, I can tell you
that living in residence at university between 2000 and 2001 was an adventure
in itself.
For starters, my roommate and I were one of the few pairs of
roommates who stuck it out THE WHOLE YEAR with each other. Almost everyone else
swapped rooms or roommates at least once. So, in that regard, I guess that was
a blessing in itself. Course, my roommate and I were very rarely in the room
together to begin with, so maybe that had something to do with it. At any rate,
we got along quite well. My neighbours were mostly okay too. I did have a
problem with one girl who lived right next door to me...nothing too
spectacular, really. I thought she was kind of up herself, and she thought I
was a jerk when I basically told her that to her face. :D Not a big deal. We
just avoided each other.
But, it was quite interesting to be in residence. Though there
was campus security there that was SUPPOSED to enforce quiet hours after eleven
p.m., I heard loud music playing in rooms as late as four in the morning. It
took a while to get used to, but I slept right through it. There were a couple
of people who called rez security every hour though. On the hour.
We also had some strong personalities who lived on our floor
too. I won't go into it in great detail because I'd need to write another note
(I mean, there must have been like eighty people on the floor alone). Needless
to say, it took some time and some patience to feel everyone out, but I quickly
found out who I could trust, and who I really didn't want to talk to ever
again.
And, really, I think that's what we all have to do with
neighbours in general. We don't have to like them, and we certainly don't have
to be obligated to donate a cup of sugar every time they drop by...but unless
you choose to build a house in the middle of a desolate forest where the
closest town is miles away, you're not going to escape having neighbours...all
you can do is live your life the best you can.
Hopefully at some point, you'll end up having a neighbourly
relationship like the people in Summer Bay...hopefully.
No comments:
Post a Comment