A Horse Named Nick

[GentlemanJim]

Season 2 episode 27

The Boys are given an aged circus horse as payment for chores performed, and bring the horse home to board in the Cleaver garage.

Half way through the episode, the municipal sanitation police appear on the Cleaver front stoop, telling Ward that a neighbor has complained that they had a dead horse on their property.

This brought back fond childhood memories where I recall hearing warnings that "The Neighbors will complain" about a whole plethora of stated evils....in fact concerns that the neighbors would likely complain, was often cited as reason enough to do all sorts of things, just to preempt their nosiness.

I was a little surprised that the neighbors would stoop to complain about the Cleaver family, given the high standards of excellence they always tried to project.

Somehow, I always envisioned a "complaint to the civic authority" to be an act of last recourse, done only after all diplomatic efforts in person had failed. So, that someone had complained to the authorities about the Cleavers without first trying to resolve their grievance person to person...surprises me.

What types of experiences have you all had? Were/are your neighbors remorseless snitches, or did they bother to at least try and resolve such issues in person?

[Tankeryanker]

I used to bring my horse home. Some neighboors complained to the city. We were told that my horse could only be on the property for 24 hrs at a time. So, I only brought her home on the weekends.




This was the neighborhood.
https://www.google.com/maps/@36.9606...7i13312!8i6656

[Tankeryanker]

For fun as a bratty teenager, I would walk around the neighborhood late Sunday night and with a valve stem remover, I would let the air out of people's tires so that when they woke up on Monday to go to work they all had flat tires.

My Brother grew pot nextdoor at this little old lady's house in her backyard. I thought that was very smart of him.

I miss that neighborhood.

[GentlemanJim]

As I was growing up, my next door neighbor was a friendly, retired old boiler maker, who possessed considerable hand skills. Across the street from us was a guy who worked for the city offices, drove a car with the city emblem on the side of it, and was a nerdy, straight laced kind of person that few people spoke kindly of.

One summer the retired boiler maker neighbor decided to build a garage in his back yard. He was doing a great job. But he didn't get a building permit.

The nerdy, city employee neighbor turned him in to the building department.

And that one episode seemed to incite contempt that lingered on for years, both of them spent a lot of time thereafter going around to the other neighbors, trying to turn the rest of the neighborhood against the other.

Some neighborhoods play "keep up with the Joneses" but in our neighborhhood it was "backstab the Jonses"

[GentlemanJim]

A guy that I used to work with until just recently, had a peacock in his back yard, and that thing drove the neighbors nutz, because the calls were so loud. But when they called to complain, the housing tract that he lived in fell outside the city limits, so there was no jurisdiction.

[Scrabjan1]

My father had a sign made for his insurance business at home and erected the sign across the street in a small clearing off the street. He got a citation from the city stating he had to remove it. The neighbors across the street and down (mother) called in the complaint cuz the father was in the insurance business. My father put it in the yard instead. We always had fights across the street with the kids. Their mother was very jealous of my mother because she was a respected teacher.

[GentlemanJim]

Originally Posted by Scrabjan1

Their mother was very jealous of my mother because she was a respected teacher.

You raise an interesting point. Perhaps these complaints are often a result of grudges between familiar combatants?

I wonder who would have a grudge against the straight laced Cleavers?

[Scrabjan1]

Eddie’s parents and of course Fred because Wally was so popular, smart and athletic.

[GentlemanJim]

Well,...I guess that Ward can consider himself fortunate that he answered the door for the sanitation police in a suit and tie, and not in a grubby tee shirt with a beer bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other, or they might have hauled him off to jail right then and there? ;-)

[Scrabjan1]

Ward didn’t wear suits as often in seasons 1 and 2 he was seen coming home in a suit but always got casual with his sweater.

[stevea]

The whole atmosphere was different in the first 2, maybe 3, seasons. Much more casual. The boys grabbed another cookie as they left the table. Cookies for dessert? Never, later.

Both Ward and June were different, not just the lovey-dovey stuff. Ward had a quicker temper, and as we've discussed before he was more prone to making parental mistakes. June was feistier, and much quicker to argue or disagree with Ward. She was doing this rather than digging thru the boys' trash.

Early on June would make a meatloaf, later on she would have roast beef or leg of lamb.

[Tankeryanker]

Originally Posted by stevea

Early on June would make a meatloaf, later on she would have roast beef or leg of lamb.

Ward got a raise? Better pay, better cuts?

[stevea]

Yup, that's when he got the corner office.

[Scrabjan1]

Fred got the Thompson account in The Black Eye later Fred mentioned how Ward can afford to buck the big brass. (Something like that) so Ward was above Fred at the salt mines.

[stevea]

And in one episode June mentioned that corner office thing.