Who Is My Neighbor? Tracy Krauss

With this question, I am sure you are expecting some kind of reference to the story of the 'Good Samaritan'. While it is one of my favorite Bible stories, I'm actually going to tell you about a current writing project called NEIGHBORS - a series of short novella length stories that I'm writing published by Helping Hands Press.

This series is dedicated to anyone who has ever had to pull up stakes and move, or to anyone who feels like they don’t fit. As a person who has moved multiple times, I know how hard it can be. The good news is, if God is with you, you are always at home.

The story itself takes place in Calgary and was inspired by my love of 'people watching'. Airports, waiting rooms, shopping malls –these are ripe fields for the student of human nature. It was during one of these ‘research’ sessions that I started a list of possible characters that might make an appearance in one of my novels. As I began to flesh some of these people out, it dawned on me that I had an entire community. What if they lived in the same neighbourhood where they could interact? I soon realized that several characters had their own unique story to tell, perhaps not long enough for a full-length novel, but perfect for a series. Thus NEIGHBORS took shape.

To date, the first three volumes have been released and there are six more to come. Volume 1- New In the Neighborhood is about displaced rancher Lester Tibbett, who has moved to the city with his teenaged sister to get a job on a construction crew. Life is far more complicated than what he is used to, especially when he finds himself attracted to a mysterious woman who is out of his reach.

Volume 2 Stuck In the Neighborhood is told from Professor Sherri Chan's point of view. As the youngest member on the faculty of a small college, she has always taken pride in her ability to rise to any challenge, until her boyfriend proposes and her life goes into a tailspin.

In Volume 3 Sneaking Around the Neighborhood, Lester's younger sister Patsi gets into trouble when she starts hanging around with a rich friend from school and her handsome older brother.

Volume 4 Working the Neighborhood should be releasing this month and Volume 5 Back In the Neighborhood is in the production queue. Four more installments round out the series with the possibility of another entire book if all goes well.

I hope you enjoy meeting this varied, sometimes quirky, cast. Welcome to the neighborhood!

Tracy Krauss is a multi-published author, playwright, artist and teacher, with several best selling and award winning novels to her credit. Tracy received her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Saskatchewan with majors in Art, and minors in History and English. Apart from her many creative pursuits, she directs an amateur theater group and leads worship at her local church. She and her husband, an ordained minister, have lived in many remote and unique places in Canada's north, and currently live in northern British Columbia. For more visit her website: http://tracykrauss.com

 

 

Canada - Life and Laundry in Small Town, Canada -- Pamela Mytroen

The back door nearly flung out of my hand as I opened it and stepped inside. There on the washing machine, where I intended so set my purse, were two pair of neatly folded men’s jeans.

I did a double take and looked back out at the clothes line. How did my husband’s jeans end up here, so nicely folded? They had been on the line just an hour earlier when I went downtown.

“Honey? Um. Thanks for folding your jeans!” I grinned. Had he really taken them off the line?

“Huh?” he said, coming around the corner. “I didn’t fold those. They were there when I got home.”

“That's...strange. Nice, but strange."

We live in a small town so it’s not surprising when people just walk in without knocking or waltz in and drop something off if you’re not home.

But this was just a little different. To take your husband’s jeans off the line, fold them so carefully, and leave all the other clothes on the line? Did somebody have something going on for my hubby?

I peeked out the side window and saw my neighbor puttering around in her yard. Aha.

I walked to the fence, leaned on it, and asked, “Do you know anything about two pair of jeans that folded themselves?”

She gave me a sly grin and told me the story.

“You remember how windy it was this morning?”

“Yes. Our regular tornado weather.”

“Right. This morning when I came out to the garden,” she said, leaning on her hoe, “there was a pair of jeans draped over the garden chair. They were laying so neatly on that chair, just like somebody slipped them off and took time to arrange them properly. Well! I took one look at them and thought the worst!”

Her husband had just had surgery and was still on morphine for pain. She assumed that in his high state he had decided to strip down in the garden and really enjoy the summer weather. So Mary, my dear somewhat girthy neighbor, grabbed those jeans and went charging down the sidewalk, certain that she would find her jovial and high husband trotting down the sidewalk in his briefs. Running down one street and then back up the other, she came home exhausted and worried, thinking that he had likely made it all the way to the Li Wong Café to visit with all the regulars. She limped into the house to catch her breath.

“Hank? Ha-a-a-a-nk!” she had called. There was no answer. Before she called the Café, she decided to check upstairs.

And there was Hank, clothed and in his right mind. Well, almost right mind. He was sitting up in bed bidding at an invisible auction. But fully clothed.

Mary took one look at the jeans stretched over his lean frame and sighed a breath of relief. “You’ve got your jeans on.”

“Of course!” He looked at her oddly. “Nice bull, eh?" He pointed to the wall. "Should we bid on it?"

So where did these jeans come from? Mary wondered turning them over in her hand. She paused at the window and spotted another pair of jeans laying in her tulips.

That’s when my saintly neighbor finally took time for a good long chuckle, realizing that the gale-force wind had knocked those jeans off my clothes line, over the fence and into her garden, landing daintily on her garden chair. Giggling, she folded them and when I wasn’t home, she just walked on in and left them there for me.

And that’s life in small town Canada. Where your neighbor feels quite at home walking into your house, and spending some time in your laundry room.

And where you might see a gal running down the sidewalk waving a pair of jeans. “If you see Hank, could you send him home? Thanks. He’s naked.”

by Pamela Mytroen