George’s Holiday Letter

We love our friend George. He goes to our church and works downtown so I run into him frequently, which makes me happy because he’s really nice, and he’s hilarious in an Alec Baldwin meets Charles Nelson Riley sort of way (I mean that as a compliment). His would-be motto for Indiana is “A person could always do worse,” which is such an endearingly Hoosier way of seeing the world.

I especially look forward to his holiday letters, which are never the usual “Jennifer pledged this fall” kind of stuff. I hope he won’t mind, but I thought I’d post a snippet of this year’s letter because his honest stories about life on DeQuincy Street where he lives, are in part what Good Home is about:

Let me say I do not have any qualms calling 911. I have done it before, and if the pattern holds, you can bet that I will be doing it again before the holidays are over. This is a stressful time of year, you know, and for the past couple of years the neighbors haven’t been handling it too well. After I sent my last letter a couple of years ago, I was going out to my car to go to a party, and a woman started screaming at me from behind a bush:

“Help! Help! Call the police!” she shouts. “My boyfriend’s jumped me, and he won’t let me back in the house!”

So yeah, I take her advice and call the cops – and when I go back out, he’s also outside.

“B—-, you can go back in the house if you want,” he screams at her, “but you better be prepared to f—–‘ die!”

“Um, excuse me?” I yell, plate of brownies in my hand, “We don’t talk like that in our neighborhood!” Pause. “We don’t act like that here!”

Pause, as he takes it in.

“Have I ever caused you problems?” he asks.

“You haven’t in the past,” I say (a lie, because he has indeed caused me problems by not cutting his grass and by generally failing to maintain his property). “But you’re causing me problems now by screaming the F-word up and down the street and threatening to kill people. Now if you’re going to act like that, just take it inside! Just take it inside because we’re not going to put up with it!”

At this point he drives off, I drive off, and according to the neighbors, three police cars show up. I don’t know if he ever got busted for it, but he must be following my advice because we haven’t heard a peep from him since. 

Merry Christmas, George! You’re one of the reasons we here in Indiana could always do worse.