Category: THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Smoke, Scrape, Yell, Repeat.

A Lesson Neighbor Consideration.

After writing “The Sheriff of Decibels,” regarding the whole “your TV is too loud” saga with Mr. Wigg, the neighbor who might have been hearing phantom sounds, I thought I had earned a brief intermission in the neighborhood drama, but then it reminded me of one of the downstairs neighbors I had once, and those thoughts led to me think of a whole different angle.  Life in a condominium is basically a rotating cast of social challenges, and the next act began downstairs.

I lived in a condominium where one of my downstairs neighbors used her balcony like it was her personal broadcasting studio.  Whenever she had company, the visitors were always on the sidewalk below.  Their conversations rose straight up.  I didn’t even have to try to overhear; the dialogue arrived fully formed, projected upward with the confidence of someone who believed the entire building was her audience.  If she ever decided to start a podcast, she wouldn’t need equipment.  She already had the lungs for it.

Another neighbor was forever loud on her cell phone.  One afternoon, I heard her give out her bank account number, a passcode, and the balance.  Wow.

Then there’s the patio furniture.  There is a neighbor who, every time she shifts a chair on her balcony, it sounds like she’s dragging a cast-iron park bench across a stone floor.  I’ve heard less noise from actual construction sites.

There was the cigarette smoke from a cheap brand yet another neighbor probably bought by the truckload.  It drifted upward in slow, dramatic spirals, and somehow it slipped into my condo like it had a key.  One moment I’m enjoying fresh air; the next, my living room and kitchen smelled like a casino buffet circa 1960.  It wasn’t ideal, but I learned to adapt since the odor didn’t last more than a half hour or so.

But here’s the important part: I didn’t complain.  Not ever.  Not a text, not a note, not even a pointed throat-clear over the balcony railing.  Why?  Because this was life in a building full of people.  They talked loudly.  They scraped furniture.  They smoked.  They lived.  And unless someone was hosting a demolition derby in their living room, I tolerated the occasional disturbances.

Besides, after the Sheriff of Decibels dealings, I’ve developed a new appreciation for not becoming That Neighbor.  If I ever feel tempted to pick up the phone and lodge a complaint, I remember how it feels to be scolded for noises that may or may not exist.  It’s an excellent deterrent.

So, I let the balcony monologues rise, let the furniture screech across the concrete, let the cigarette smoke drift out and upward like a weather pattern.  I breathed, I adjusted, I moved on.  Because in the grand, chaotic symphony of condo living, sometimes the most intelligent thing you can do is simply not add your own instrument to the noise.

I just laughed it all off.

 

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The Age of Adonis (Part 3).

Part 3 of 3:  The Middle Distance.

There is a peculiar vantage point one gains simply by living in close proximity to other human beings.  Not close enough to know their secrets, but close enough to witness their habits; their triumphs, their peculiarities, their kindness, their small vanities, their authenticity, and quieter graces.  It is the view from the middle distance, where comedy and clarity often arrive hand‑in‑hand.

From this vantage point, I have watched our neighborhood Adonis swell into his mythic proportions, strutting through the hallways and on the neighborhood sidewalks like a man auditioning for a protein‑powder commercial.  His life is lived in bold, glossy strokes of sweat, swagger, and spectacle.  He found the easy way in life to make a dollar, becoming a grifter front and center on the unholy stage of a community fellowship group, sermonizing under the guise of praises and blessings peppered within his readings of scripture verses found in a distorted Bible.  He is the sort of person who seems to believe that if he flexes hard enough – whether it is flexing by quoting scripture or flexing muscles – the world will mistake it for virtue.  At the same time, he soaks in the adulation and attention as one would with water from the River Jordan.

And then, from the same vantage point, I have watched the quiet ones; the door‑holders, the plant‑waterers, the hallway‑softeners moving through the building with a gentleness that neither asks nor demands anything in return.  Their lives are lived in gentle lowercase letters, steady and unadorned.  They are not trying to be noticed, which is precisely why they are.

Modern life, for all its noise, has a way of revealing character in the smallest of moments.  The man who performs goodness loudly often performs it only for the applause and attention.  The man who waters the begonias when no one is looking is not performing at all.  He is simply and unobtrusively being who he is.

Discernment, I’ve learned, is not about judging people harshly.  It’s about seeing clearly and recognizing the difference between shine and substance, between the man who builds his body like an Old Testament golden monument and the neighbor who quietly builds a life of decency.  Humility, too, is not a grand gesture.  It is the quiet refusal to make oneself the center of every hallway and fellowship stage.  To learn what not to become is one of the great lessons of life.

And what about the comedy of modernity?  It’s everywhere.  It’s in the man who cannot lower his arms because his torso has become a personal billboard.  It’s in the fluorescent lights catching a thousand sequins on Cowgirl Betty’s jacket in the middle of a sunny day.  It’s in the way we all, at one point or another, take ourselves far too seriously.

But the deeper comedy is the one that makes you smile long after the moment has passed.  It is this: the people who most want to be admired rarely are, and the people who never think about admiration often end up holding the whole place together.

In the middle distance, the truth becomes clear.  Strength is not measured in inches of bicep or the girth of one’s chest.  Beauty is not measured in lumens of sparkle.  Virtue, the real kind, is almost always quiet enough to miss if you’re not paying attention.

But once you see it, you start noticing it everywhere.

This is the final chapter of three parts.

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The Age of Adonis (Part 2)

Part 2 of 3:  The Quiet Virtues

Not long after watching the rise of our neighborhood Adonis — the sweat, the swagger, the ever‑expanding circumference of his upper body — I began noticing something else in the building.  Something smaller, quieter, and far easier to overlook.

It started with the older gentleman on the fifth floor, the one who always carries a canvas tote bag and walks with a slight shuffle.  I once saw him pause in the lobby to hold the door for a mother wrangling a stroller and two grocery bags.  He didn’t say much. He just nodded, smiled, and waited until she was safely inside.  No flexing.  No performance.  Just a simple act of courtesy that didn’t require an audience.

Then there’s the woman down the hall who leaves small seasonal decorations on her door.  They aren’t elaborate, just a tiny flowery wreath or a quilted, hanging pumpkin door decoration.  She never announces them, never tries to impress anyone.  But somehow those little touches soften the whole hallway, as if she’s quietly reminding the rest of us that beauty doesn’t have to shout.

And of course, there’s the retired engineer who waters the courtyard plants when no one else remembers.  He doesn’t make speeches about community or stewardship.  He simply notices what needs doing and does it, his hands moving with the calm competence of someone who has spent a lifetime tending to things that grow slowly.

None of these people would ever call themselves virtuous.  They would laugh at the idea.  They are simply living their lives with a kind of unselfconscious decency that doesn’t demand or look for applause.

It struck me one afternoon, watching the engineer mist the begonias while Adonis strutted past, that quiet virtues are the ones that actually hold a place together.  Not the loud displays of strength or the curated personas, but the small, steady acts that ask for nothing in return.

The world has always had its Adonises; men who sculpt themselves into monuments and then wonder why no one bows.  But the world has also always had its quiet souls, the ones who keep the doors open, the plants alive, the hallways gentle.

And if I’m honest, it’s the quiet ones who make a neighborhood livable.  They are the ballast, the steadying weight, the reminder that goodness doesn’t need to be dramatic nor a showboat to be real.

In a culture obsessed with spectacle, the quiet virtues are almost radical these days.  They whisper instead of shout.  They build instead of pose.  They endure long after the muscles deflate and the spotlight moves on.

And perhaps that is the real miracle: that in a world full of noise, the softest lives are often the ones that speak the truth most clearly.

Part 3 will be published on April 18, 2026.

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The Age of Adonis (Part 1)

Part 1 of 3:  Reflections on Vanity, Virtue, and the Modern Parade

He was the sort of man who made a living preaching The Word while somehow managing to sidestep most of its demands.  You could see it in the way he carried himself; earnest on the surface, but with a hollowness underneath, like a sermon missing its last page.

When I first met him, he was almost aggressively unremarkable: small, soft around the middle, a crew cut that looked like it had been administered by someone in a hurry, and some type of cologne that would gag a maggot.  He told me he had left the Church and was now preaching at a non‑denominational fellowship down the road.  He quoted Scripture with the enthusiasm of someone who had just discovered the footnotes and wanted everyone to know and be impressed.  Truthfully, it felt less like devotion and more like a performance of mental gymnastics meant to impress.  They didn’t.

In our brief conversations, he mentioned he was a former drug user, now clean, and that he was “still learning” and had “a long way to go” in understanding The Word.  That part, at least, I believed.

But then something shifted.

Slowly, his upper body began to expand.  It was first subtly, then alarmingly.  I would see him at the neighborhood gym, or returning from it, sweat pouring off him in rivulets that perfumed the condominium hallways with a scent that could only be described as fusty.  Other days, I’d spot him leaving Atomic Health Club in town, towels slung over his shoulder, his wet T‑shirt clinging to him like a second skin.  He would leap into his sports car with the flourish of a man starring in his own music video and drive off like a bolt out of the blue.

By summer, the transformation seemed complete.  One afternoon, he and his family walked down the hallway on their way to the swimming pool. “Walked” is generous—he lumbered, unable to lower his arms fully because his torso had grown to mythic proportions.  He wore only baggy shorts (I cannot call them trunks), his thick thighs rubbing together and his calves looking like chicken legs.  It looked like it hurt him to move his legs, and for that moment I felt sorry for him.  His pre‑tween daughter wore a bikini so revealing it made me blink twice in embarrassment.  His wife and son, ironically, were dressed modestly befitting a church picnic.

His upper body had become enormous, his thighs still pronounced, his calves still comically thin.  He reminded me of a Greek statue carved by an artist who ran out of marble halfway through.  It was unsettling, the kind of physique that makes you instinctively step aside in case it topples or explodes.

He strutted through the building with the air of a man fishing for admiration, or perhaps for something more.  Someone once told me that people who leave one addiction often find another to replace the high.  Maybe this was that; maybe it wasn’t.  I’m not his confessor; I can only pray for him.

What I do know is this: the greater his muscles grew, the quieter his preaching rang.  There was a disconnect between the man he proclaimed himself to be and the man he was becoming, between the humility of the Gospel and the vanity of the mirror.

And perhaps that is the real caution of the Age of Adonis: when the body becomes the altar, the soul is left without a place to kneel and worship the one true God.

Part 2 will be published on April 16, 2026.

 

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A Ministry of Mayhem.

Parents who do not teach their children to respect and obey actually prepare them for a life out of step with God’s Word and in step with the devils.

You might assume that a man styling himself a pastor would have a household that at least vaguely exhibits the teachings of Jesus.  You know, the kind of pastor who should be an example to society, a spiritual guide, a moral compass, and a weekly dispenser of authentic wisdom on the stage of his Fellowship Congregation.  You might even imagine that he’d model basic manners and modesty.

A long time ago, when I lived in a certain condominium, one such person paraded bare-chested in the condominium hallways and public sidewalks.  You’d probably would think that this “pastor” would’ve covered himself up and not parade around in public bare-chested.  By doing that, he was teaching his son well to do the same, which eventually happened, too.  As time when on, his pre-teen daughter was wearing low cut tops and belly-button-showing jeans and beachwear.

This particular family let their children throw out the family garbage, not through the garbage chute, but leave it hidden in the janitor’s closet until the odors compelled other residents to investigate.  The kids squirted soda or some sort of drink on the carpet in the elevator (I saw them do that just as the elevator door opened.)  If the parents double-checked their kids’ chores and where they were, they could’ve corrected them and set them on the right path.  Maybe.

Their children, old enough to know better, ran through the halls at all hours: dawn, mid‑afternoon, nearly midnight.  The thundering footsteps were so intense I occasionally wondered if the building had been repurposed as a training facility for buffalo stampedes.

And again, these were not toddlers.  These were pre‑teens, fully capable of understanding rules, boundaries, and the concept of “other people exist,” so be thoughtful!

The “pastor’s” wife, too, contributed to her own public ministry: it was an evangelization of scent so potent it could’ve knocked a person out.  It was so strong and long-lasting, it made the neighbors think she most likely applied the body lotions and colognes uncontrollably from head to toe.  Her cologne didn’t merely enter the hallways or elevator; it conquered, planted a flag, and dared anyone to challenge its sovereignty.  Her neighborliness went as far as waving at you with her arm behind her head, but never turning to face you and say, “hello.”

Maybe I’m all wet here; however, my thoughts always were that when a husband/father is a pastor of some wort, he guides his family on the path of holiness according to Jesus’ teachings and they all become a positive example to the neighborhood and to the world.  Yet, in that case I wrote about, they weren’t all that friendly, the kids were wild, and they sure solidified the neighbors’ opinions that a “pastor’s” family can be a shining example of what not to do.

In the end, it’s sad: a “pastor” who cannot shepherd his own household, a family whose public displays consists of hallway chaos, elevator dirtying, public undress, and overall disrespect towards neighbors.

But beneath all that sits a quieter truth.  When parents refuse to teach respect, discipline, and consideration, the world instead becomes their children’s classroom, and the lessons are rarely kind.  A household without order doesn’t just scandalize and inconvenience its neighbors; it forms a generation unprepared for the responsibilities, reverence, and self‑control that a faithful and respectable life requires.

 

 

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Fusty Skunk, Rotting Fish.

When I lived at the Sage Pointe Condominiums, I never knew which putrid odor would ambush my unsuspecting nose when I opened my door to the hallway or when I stepped on or off the elevator.

The hallway had its own olfactory roulette wheel.  Some days the marijuana smelled like musky, gassy skunk.  Other days it hit like rotting fish drenched in pungent patchouli.  Sometimes it was a perfect blend of old, fusty socks and rank elephant.  Sometimes it smelled of eucalyptus.  Add to that the lingering smell of cheap cologne and cigarettes, greasy sausage, and those scents stayed for hours, only to fade and make room for the next dreadful strain of stench.

One of the building’s finest “amenities” was the elevator, which faithfully preserved the perfume of whoever rode it last.  I have taken rides perfumed by Grandma Weede’s lingering skunky marijuana haze from an hour earlier.  On other days, the odor du jour was a baffling mix of candy‑sweet pre‑teen bath and body sprays and lotions from the Stankle girls.  It was a combination that somehow managed to get stronger the farther down you travelled on the elevator car.

Mrs. Stankle, on her own, specialized in mysterious stenches that defied classification.  Some days it was sugary carrots, and other days it was akin to coconut-musk that went terribly wrong.  And sometimes it was something so indescribable that the only reasonable response was to pray for deliverance.

Adonis was no different.  If he didn’t just return from the gym dripping with smelly sweat, he reeked of a potent blend of sweat and Drakkar Noir, a combination that could have knocked a grown adult back a full step or two.  His life is lived in bold, glossy strokes of sweat, swagger, and spectacle.

Then there’s the Weede Family, whose contributions varied by the hour.  Their hallway offerings ranged from “forest‑floor funk” to “burnt tire with herbal aspirations.”  Or they left the elevator lingering with the aroma of greasy chicken or the tang of old tacos.  Their door was like a portal to a different dimension, one where ventilation systems and their filters went to die.

One entire floor in one of the complex’s buildings reeked of cheap cigarette tobacco that emanated from just one condo unit.

Then there was the smell of wet dog, musty dog, stale dog.  It emerged unpredictably, but usually in the late afternoons, and clung to the elevator walls until it was finally overpowered by some other mysterious stench.

The elevator contributed its own disturbing whiffs of diesel fuel, and that’s a story for another day.

Rarely did the hallways offer the uplifting aromas of barbecue or simmering spaghetti sauce.  When I brought my dog home from his Spa Day appointment, he became a walking air freshener— sort of a jasmine-lavender-powdery scent that lasts until his next appointment.  Since my condo retains this scent, I imagine he also left his trail through the hallways and elevator, just like everyone else, so maybe it was disturbing to others.

At Sage Pointe, the smells changed by the hour because there was always someone contributing to the fragrant or stinky bouquet.  Rarely—oh so rarely—did the hallways offer the comforting aromas of barbecue or sweet baked cakes.  Those scents were the rarities of Sage Pointe: imagined, longed for, and almost certainly elusive.

 

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The Poverty of Perpetual Anger.

There is a particular sadness in watching people who live in a constant state of anger, and I see this quite a lot in my neighborhood, and especially since 2020.  Their anger is not the righteous anger that rises to defend the vulnerable, but the chronic, simmering kind; the kind that becomes a personality, a worldview, a permanent narrowing of the soul.  Some of these people turn ugly and violent when they are cordially greeted by neighbors.  These are people who treat every encounter as a contest, every disagreement as a threat, every difference as a personal insult.  Perhaps they believe they are defending themselves, but in truth they are defending the walls that imprison them.

Anger becomes their only vocabulary.  They speak it fluently, instinctively, even proudly, and peppered heavily with vulgar and filthy words.  But beneath that lies a deep poverty of spirit.  A person who must always be angry and offensive is a person who has forgotten how to be free and kind.

The tragedy is not merely that they harm others—though they do.  The deeper tragedy is what they lose within themselves without realizing it.

  • They lose the ability to be surprised by goodness.
  • They lose the capacity for joy that comes from generosity.
  • They lose the peace that only humility can give.
  • They lose the richness of a larger world than their own reflection.

They trade all of this for the brittle satisfaction of being “right” and boorish, even when that “rightness” isolates them.  They probably do not realize that the fortress they build to keep others out is the same fortress that keeps them in.

My sadness for them is not schmaltzy.  It is not the soft sadness of pity.  It is the sharper sadness that comes from recognizing wasted possibility.  These are people who could be expansive, curious, generous, a positive addition to the neighborhood, but instead they choose the cramped rooms of anger and rejection.  They choose to live in a world too small for any soul.  It is as though they are possessed by demons.

A life fueled by anger cannot lead to peace.  A heart closed to others cannot experience love.  A mind that rejects difference cannot grow.  They may cling to their fury and their narrowness as if these things protect them, but in the end, they protect nothing.  They only ensure that the person holding them remains untouched by the very things that make life worth living.

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Squirrely Pearl.

I made my way to the deli counter at my friendly neighborhood grocery store, ready to place my order, when a five‑foot‑nothing woman glided under my elbow with the confidence of someone who has never waited her turn in her entire life.  Before I could blink, she was already whisper‑dictating her order to the clerk.

“Four slices of Havarti cheese,” she breathed, in a tone so soft it sounded like she was sharing state secrets.

When that order was handed over, she continued.

“Six slices of Buffalo‑style chicken breast,” she whispered again, as if the poultry might overhear and object.

This pattern repeated itself — item, whisper, handoff — like a tiny, highly specialized espionage operation.  Then came the tasting sample.  The clerk offered her a slice of Gruyere, and that’s when her true form emerged.

She took a tiny, tiny bite.  It was a bite so miniscule it would have required laboratory equipment to detect.  And she chewed it with her front teeth, slowly, methodically, exactly like a squirrel working through a hazelnut.  Then another tiny bite.  More squirrel chewing.  I half expected her to scamper up the deli case and store the rest in her cheeks for winter.

The whole performance was incredible: she whisper‑talked like Jackie Kennedy and nibbled like Rocket J. Squirrel.  I never did get my order in (I eventually grabbed some pre-cut cheese in the refrigerated case), but honestly, I left feeling like I’d witnessed a rare and delicate species in its natural habitat.

 

 

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The Sheriff of Decibels, Mr. Wigg.

A Lesson in Neighbor Consideration.

I once lived in a high-rise condominium where everyone kept to himself, and all was peachy with the world.  But there was one night when I received a phone call from a neighbor, a Mr. Wigg, informing me once again that my television was on “too loud” and he can’t sleep.  I was watching an old movie, as I usually did in the early evenings if I stayed home.  This was a recurring performance on his part, a kind of neighborhood opera in which he played both the aggrieved victim and the self-appointed Sheriff of Decibels.  At that point, I was starting to wonder whether the sound was actually carrying or whether my neighbor simply enjoyed the thrill of a good complaint because the room where my television is did not butt up against his bedroom, but against his butler’s pantry.

Here’s the twist: I could hear his television, too.  Talk shows, game shows, dramatic monologues, the whole cinematic buffet.  And yet I’ve never felt compelled to call him and deliver a noise citation.  I’d assume Mr. Wigg was just… living.  Watching things.  Being a person in a building full of other people doing what people do to live.  It’s part of the deal when you choose communal living over a cabin in the woods on ten acres.

Still, every time my phone lit up with his name on the screen, I rolled my eyes.  At that time of evening, it could not be a friendly hello.  It’s always a report, as if he was monitoring my condo with a sound meter and a clipboard.

I played with the idea that conducting an experiment or two.  I thought of turning down the volume to a whisper—barely audible even to me—and wait.  Would my phone ring?  I don’t know, but I was willing to bet a dime to a donut that he was hearing phantom noises, or he had superhuman hearing, or perhaps the echoes of his own television bounced around his condo like a boomerang.

There’s a special kind of fatigue that comes from dealing with neighbors who are both hypersensitive and oblivious to their own habits.  It’s like being scolded by someone about your manners when they are chewing food and smacking loudly with their mouth open.  You want to point it out, but you know it won’t land.

So, I’ve reached a conclusion: either my television had mystical projection abilities, or my neighbor developed a hobby of policing imaginary disturbances.  I continued living my life at a reasonable volume.

And honestly, at that point, the only thing louder than my television was that special kind of comedy.  Personally, I think he had his wig on too tight.

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