The neighborhood I live in.

Is great, but I'll have to tell you that I work my ass off at being a good neighbor, too. Like a lot of things in life, it's a 2 way street.

I'm away a lot and the neighbors look after my place like a hawk.

When I'm home, I'm on call 24/7 in return.

All in all, it's a pretty good deal that pays pretty good dividends.

I'm the guy that gets the 3 AM calls when the water pipe in the house decides to let go. I'm the guy that gets the call at 3 AM that a neighbor has to be rushed to the hospital, and would I stay with the kids?

Antoine came over the other day and told me he had swapped bedrooms around with the kids and that he had a new fire plan. This meant we went through his house and I made mental notes where all his kids slept in case there was a fire.

I paid attention. I really don't expect a fire there, but just the same, it's good to know. Besides, it MEANS a lot to him, costs me no money and is a part of being a good neighbor. He now sleeps just a little easier knowing that someone else knows how to drag his kids out in an emergency.

When one neighbor was rushed to the hospital at 2 AM a couple of years ago, I was awakened and instead of asking a bunch of dumb questions, I pulled on my pants, stuffed my feet into mocs, grabbed a quilt and walked a couple doors down and sacked out on the couch. The next morning, I fed a couple of kids and took them to school. It cost me nothing, just a little interrupted sleep.

I've replaced laundry sinks and hot water heaters, moved cable TV lines, patched roofs and replumbed various water and drain lines.

I also maintain a small grog locker that is accessible to certain neighbors. There's generally a bottle of gin, a bottle of Irish and a bottle of Bourbon in it and certain neighbors hold the combination to the lock on it.

All of this pays incredible dividends.

When I'm gone, I often return to a freshly mowed lawn, and the first day I'm home, I get invited to dinner either at one neighbor or the other's, which is great, as I don't have to go shopping the instant I arrrive home.

Believe it or not, I have not shoveled snow in a decade, as I maintain a neighbor's snow blower, which reminds me that I have to change his oil when I get home and fire it up for him.

All of this costs me very little money, and I get paid HUGE dividends.

It doesn't take much.


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Some times you cast your bread on the water and the ducks eat it and swim off, but most of the time you get back poached eggs on toast.
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Today the tug changed crews.

It was an interesting perspective, as usually I change with them. Instead I got to see one crew get off and one crew get on.

Although I have done exactly what they did about a jillion times, it was interesting watching it as an observer. I just watched something I have done instead of doing it.

I've worked with every member of both crews and I'd have to say I enjoy a reputation of being someone that will bend over backwards to make things easier for people without getting walked on. I've only had one small spat with one of the tug crew, a captain. I simply ended the spat by shrugging and telling him to do the math. He stopped and thought for a second and promptly forgot about the incident.

Another thing I try to do out here is to take something that we do day in and day out and put it in a perspective that makes if fun.

More than once I've gotten the tug crew to wave at the guys throwing our lines off and act like they're sailing a cruise ship, complete with the skipper blowing the horn a couple of times.

The line handlers grinned and shook their heads, but yoou can be sure that the next time they tied us up, they stepped a little more lively for us and grinned when they saw it was us.

It's important to be remembered out here as competent, willing to help and make things easier. Making it a little fun is a great bonus.

Good will pays great dividends out here.

Dock shack out of coffee? Send 'em down a can, or at least a partial. The goodwill will generally pay dividends.

A while ago, a dock sent us up enough coffee to supply us for months simply for splicing up a tag line for them. Three minutes work. It was their rope, too.

One of the guys out of smokes? If you've been good to a gauger, he'll often GIVE him a pack or even an entire carton if he has snagged them as sea stores from a ship and he doesn't smoke that brand himself. At the least, he'll run up the store and pick him up a pack.

You have to remember that it's a two way street, and not get greedy.



Thus ends another epistle of the Gospel According to Piccolo.