I’ve written other blog entries about Molly, one of my neighbors on the second floor of the condo, where I spend my winters in Pompano Beach, Florida.
Molly, in her seventies, continues to use a walker for an astonishing level of mobility that I would still love to measure in terms of horsepower. The sound of the walker is the only means besides Molly’s untempered, Teamster voice, to let the rest of us on the second floor know that she is in the vicinity. Molly’s grand sense of entitlement has erased any obligation she may once have had to show courtesy to her neighbors, or anyone else. When she wants something, she wants it NOW, whether it means fixing her phone, helping her find her hairnet, or borrowing a cup of whiskey. She can be quite rude in her demands, often using language that would make a sailor blush, but one of her least sensitive practices has been that of taking her empty, glass, gallon wine jugs and throwing them down the garbage chute (daily) at the end of the second-floor walkway, where my condo is. As Molly never cushions the heavy glass jugs in paper, or bothers to walk downstairs (or by the elevator) to dispose of the jug in the recycling bin, the sound reverberates when it hits the steel bin. The first time I heard this noise, I honestly thought a bomb had gone off until another neighbor informed me that it was only Molly throwing away her empty, gallon, wine jug.
That neighbor, up to her chin in Molly’s shenanigans, finally had enough and threatened her with either a police report or bodily harm if Molly ever again disturbed the peace by hurling another wine jug down that chute. Apparently, Donna’s threats managed to penetrate Molly’s hairnet, because now Molly drinks only boxed wines, which when empty and thrown down the garbage chute, then making impact with the steel bin, create only the gentle thud of consideration (or is it really the muffled nudge of fear from Donna’s threat?).
About John
About John
John Bolinger was born and raised in Northwest Indiana, where he attended Ball State University and Purdue University, receiving his BS and MA from those schools. Then he taught English and French for thirty-five years at Morton High School in Hammond, Indiana before moving to Colorado, where he resided for ten years before moving to Florida. Besides COME SEPTEMBER, Journey of a High School Teacher, John's other books are ALL MY LAZY RIVERS, an Indiana Childhood, and COME ON, FLUFFY, THIS AIN'T NO BALLET, a Novel on Coming of Age, all available on Amazon.com as paperbacks and Kindle books. Alternately funny and touching, COME SEPTEMBER, conveys the story of every high school teacher’s struggle to enlighten both himself and his pupils, encountering along the way, battles with colleagues, administrators, and parents through a parade of characters that include a freshman boy for whom the faculty code name is “Spawn of Satan,” to a senior girl whose water breaks during a pop-quiz over THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Through social change and the relentless march of technology, the human element remains constant in the book’s personal, entertaining, and sympathetic portraits of faculty, students, parents, and others. The audience for this book will certainly include school teachers everywhere, teenagers, parents of teens, as well as anyone who appreciates that blend of humor and pathos with which the world of public education is drenched. The drive of the story is the narrator's struggle to become the best teacher he can be. The book is filled with advice for young teachers based upon experience of the writer, advice that will never be found in college methods classes.
Another of John's recent books is Mum's the Word: Secrets of a Family. It is the story of his alcoholic father and the family's efforts to deal with or hide the fact. Though a serious treatment of the horrors of alcoholism, the book also entertains in its descriptions of the father during his best times and the humor of the family's attempts to create a façade for the outside world. All John's books are available as paperbacks and Kindle readers on Amazon, and also as paperbacks at Barnes & Noble. John's sixth book is, Growing Old in America: Notes from a Codger was released on June 15, 2014. John’s most recent book is a novel titled Resisting Gravity, A Ghost Story, published the summer of 2018
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