The Van Guy

Photo by Julian Schultz on Unsplash

I had originally told you during the “My First Birthday on Substack” story that I would be releasing a story about “The Characters of Cedar Run”. But as I was starting to write that, I discovered that the story was going to be too long. It is currently at 5,000 words. So I’ve decided to split some of it up into single stories. This will be best for me and you. Imagine trying to read a giant article with over 5,000 words. I don’t know about you but I would get tired of something that long. You might still see that title later on when I put the smaller stories together.

So let’s get to it.

This guy lived across the street from me. He drove a van similar to the one shown above. His was white with a green accent color. Otherwise, it looks exactly the same. His Florida license plate said he was a Pearl Harbor Survivor.

I talked about this guy in my story about “Trapped! Now What?”. That was just a little snippet of what I had to endure with this guy. Where do I start?

For the longest time, when he saw me, he called me Max. LOL!!!!!🤣 When we first moved there, we introduced ourselves. I didn’t realize he was calling me Max. I thought he was saying Matt. Then one day, after work, they were in their driveway and we went over there for some reason. At the time, I was working for a company where I was required to wear a badge with my name and photo on it. He noticed my badge and then told me he thought my name was Max. He said it was easy to remember because the guy that lived behind us name was Max. We got a chuckle out of it.

He was constantly parking his van on our front lawn. He would roll his right side tires up over the curb and onto the lawn. That part of the lawn would be destroyed. We finally decided to put up some small fences to deter him from doing it. It didn’t work. He drove over them and destroyed them. I called the police and they said they couldn’t do anything unless it was over $500. We lost a lot of money and fences.

After he did that and I told him I was calling the police, he became paranoid. I said I was going to come over to his front lawn and park up on his lawn. I was just joking. But he took it seriously. Way too seriously. His mailbox was located on the left side of his driveway if you were looking directly at his house. The same day I said that, he starts digging up his mailbox post. He moved the mailbox to the right side of his driveway. He worked into the night to get it prepared. I think he finished around 9 or 10 p.m. Apparently, he was worried I would mow down his mailbox. I guess that was unacceptable to him but mowing down our small fences was okay. He told us that he called our insurance company about those fences saying you weren’t allowed to have them. How would he know who our insurance company was? And why would an insurance company be involved with little decorative fences?

Our next door neighbors, who you’ll hear about another time, were snowbirds. Something must have been wrong with their roof. They wanted him to check it out. He set up a ladder and climbed it to the top. He dismounted it and was walking on the roof. When it was time to come back down, he couldn’t do it. He finally got the attention of this old guy that lived next door to give him a hand. When he tried to do it by himself the ladder was really wobbly. It was a metal ladder, nothing rickety. The other guy held the ladder at the bottom and he came down the ladder. But he was up there for about 20 minutes before he got his attention. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t go out and help him. That’s a valid point. I always try to help people but this guy had given me so much trouble, I didn’t want to help him. He shouldn’t have gotten up there at his age.

One time he accused me of spying on him. I was in my garage looking over at his place. He was working in his driveway. I wasn’t spying on him. I was watching out for my property.

He started feeding stray cats that came into the neighborhood. Did he feed the cat on his property? Of course not. He walked over to the electric box that was between our property and the property next door and placed cans of food on the box. The cat and any other animals like raccoons that roamed the neighborhood would come over through our yard and feast on what he left. I confronted him about it once and he wasn’t expecting me to be there. It was dark out and he thought he could sneak in there and do it without me seeing. What he didn’t know is I was waiting for him to come over there. I was watching from my patio and when I saw him start to walk over there, I went outside through the garage.

Our conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hey! Stop putting that there!”

Him: “What? Who’s there?”

Me: “It’s Matt. Don’t feed those cats over here!”

Him: “You can’t tell me what to do. I can do whatever I want!”

Me: “Feed them over at your place.”

Him: “I don’t want them over there.”

Me: “I don’t want them over here either.”

I proceeded to knock the can of cat food off the box. I don’t think he picked it up. He went back over to his place. I don’t think he ever did it again. He started feeding them from his place.

His wife was a talker. You could never get away from her. One time, the President of the United States was coming to the area. It was President George W. Bush. They were landing at Patrick Air Force Base. The landing zone was right over our house. My Mom and I were standing out in our side yard to see Air Force One fly over. I had my camera all ready to go. The wife saw my Mom and came over to our front yard and coaxed her back there to talk. I saw the plane go over. My Mom missed it.

One time, he bought a beat-up old box truck. It was totally rusted out in the box portion. He worked on that day and night. I couldn’t figure out if he was trying to restore it and sell it or what.

Another time, he bought a moped. He would go up and down our street and the street to the west. When I saw him on it, I thought he had a death-wish. Here was an 80-year-old guy speeding down the road at the fastest speed I ever saw a moped go. One false move and he would have flown off and probably killed himself. What if an animal had jumped out into the road?

Conclusion

I’d like to add that I have welcomed 8 new subscribers in the past few weeks. Thank you for being here. I hope you enjoy these real-life stories.

And I’m always looking for feedback. Feel free to share this story to someone who might like it. Leave a comment if you want.

Until next time, happy reading!

-Matt