Gil's Centennial

Here was a man I barely knew, yet I quote him and tell stories about him all the time.

Gil was our neighbor when we lived in Fort Greene, NY, back in the days when there were actual neighborhoods with not just racial diversity, but age diversity, too. Try to find an elderly person in Fort Greene now who owns their own home and knows their neighbors. When I lived there, I was in my 30's and 40's. Unless you're very wealthy, you can't afford my former home. It would set you back $1.25 million.

I'm glad I got that off my chest. Gil lived four houses down the block from us. He used to stand out front in his garden as the summer day cooled off a bit, saying "hi, how you be?" to all who passed. I immediately stopped and introduced myself, and he, himself. He was originally from the South but moved to New York City to work and raise his family. He settled in Fort Greene and was now retired. I remember he drove this huge old car from the 70's, a living room on wheels. It was two-tone, one color being a burnt orange. Man, he was a dude.

His wife "passed" a year or so after we'd moved in. She'd been a shut-in and I'd never met her. He told me,  she'd had a good long life. Then he did what he always did, cut some roses from his front bushes and presented them to me. "A beautiful woman must always have roses." What a gentleman!

Some nights, when Gil glimpsed me out back (townhouses all have side-by-side yards), he would say "hey young lady, come out front." There would be Gil, with a huge bouquet of roses from his "real" garden. "A beautiful woman must always have roses." What a gentleman.

One day, after his wife died and after he could no-longer drive due to cataracts and glaucoma, I told him it was my birthday. I was born in January or else he'd have cut one rose from every bush in his garden. "Well young lady, you are twice my age!"

As he grew older, he would would still sometimes be standing and leaning on his front fence in the evenings, but usually sat in a chair.

When I saw him and approached he'd immediately stand up.

"How you be, young lady?"
"Fine and how are you?"
Aw, what's the sense of kickin'?"

He was declining in health but he'd never complain. He was like my grandfather in that regard.


I'm not sure when he left his rose gardens behind for good, because we moved a few years later. What a loss to my neighborhood, and my life.