From the publisher: Fences don't always make good neighbors


By Sandy Sanders


Poet Robert Frost wrote that fences make for good neighbors. He felt that fences kept us in good order. True.

My backdoor neighbor died last week. He was one of the best. His name was Wesley Johnson.

I had known him for nearly 40 years but only as a neighbor since 2002. For at least 10 of those years, he was my pharmacist.

When my wife and I were looking at the home we live in now, I commented to her the man going into the house behind us looked like Wesley. I looked his phone number up and called him. “Where do you live?”

When he explained where his street was, I knew it was him.

“We might be your new backdoor neighbor,” I said.

“Great, we will be glad to have you,” he answered.

From the day we moved in to almost the last day, he was able to work in his yard, or he and my wife, or he and I, talked over the fence. He even shared a peach tree with me. As it turned out neither of us were very good at growing peach trees. We both had a laugh over that.

The first time I saw Wesley as a pharmacist, it was over the counter of the drug store which in a way is like a fence. When you walked up to the counter, he always gave you a big smile. At his funeral, the minister mentioned often his smile. It was for everyone. He did not hold it for a select few. At the drug store every customer was welcomed with the same greeting. The customer who he knew might not be able to pay the bill or the ones who paid with cash were never treated differently.

Wesley found out in May that he had Lou Gehrig’s disease. I think he realized he had the disease long before the diagnosis. By October, he began to feel the full brunt of the dreaded illness. By December, the disease had begun to take away his beautiful smile as his muscles began to fail him. He died Dec. 31. He was 69.

With or without a fence, Wesley would have been no less the good neighbor with no less of a smile.



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