Tuesday, July 25, 2006

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND!

“...for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”  (Galatians 6:7)

What goes around comes around.  I believe that.  There is no Bible verse which SPECIFICALLY says, “What goes around comes around”, but Galatians 6:7 comes REALLY close!  I am mindful of these thoughts because of what happened this past Sunday afternoon:

The two-family house which is two houses down from where I live on Harrison Street Framingham has been for sale for at least four months.  There has been little activity in our around that property in at least four months.  Sunday, that property was HOPPING!  I must say that around 2 p.m. I was startled to hear Brazilian music BLASTING all over Harrison Street, AND to hear the amplified voices of mostly Portuguese-speaking males yelling.  Such an occurrence in the church’s South Street neighborhood would not even  raise an eyebrow.  The church property, deep in a poor and ethnic section of Framingham’s southside, is commonly “treated” to loud Latin music and speech, car tires squealing, people yelling, and a whole lot worse.  But Harrison Street is in a “better” part of the southside.  It’s in the “good part of the bad part of Framingham”- the people tend to be blue-collar, but of a better class, and you’ll even get a few white collar workers and professionals thrown in the mix.  But this Sunday, Harrison Street might as well have been South Street.

The church bought the Harrison Street parsonage back in 1946, when it owned the VERY small church building at nearby Hartford and C Sts.  (That church was sold in 1991 and has changed hands several times.)   When I moved onto Harrison Street in 1987 it was mostly white, middle-class...some middle aged couples and their kids, and a number of elderly folks whose kids were grown.  In 1990, the two-family house directly next door was purchased by a very young couple (with a toddler) who lived on the first floor.  They rented the second floor to a biker friend.  Throughout the summers of 1990 and 1991, Saturday nights featured LOUD BLARING ROCK MUSIC, motorcycles revving up, tattooed bare chested males guzzling beer, with their scantily-clad wives and girlfriends joining right in.  These parties would go until 4 a.m.  Several elderly folks put up “For Sale” signs and moved.  The neighborhood was changing and not for the better.  Ironically, the neighborhood is much more quiet and conservative today!  My next door neighbors are now in their early and mid-forties.  They haven’t had a truly wild party in at least nine years, and I don’t think they’ve had a party go past midnight in at least seven years.  Their house has been beautifully fixed up and looks a lot better than the house I live in.  NOW, the loud obnoxious party was taking place next door to THEM!  I noticed my female next door neighbor walk out in the midst of the Portuguese yelling and look (somewhat aghast) at the party going on next door to her home.

Everything in me wanted to yell, “How does it feel now, Madeline?!”

I didn’t need to.   TODAY,  I doubt she could easily put up with the 1990 version of herself, let alone a bunch of ecstatic and uninhibited Brazilians.

I remarked to my daughter that I wondered if the loud Brazilians had bought the house.  She said she hoped not, but I commented that it couldn’t have happened to a more appropriate group than our next-door neighbors!

In unison we both said, “What goes around comes around!”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bob, your neighborhood sounds a lot like mine! What used to be called "luxury apartments" has turned into something else.  Lots of loud (Spanish) music being played at the highest decibels, coming from open windows, cars parked in the parking lot, windows open and young people just sitting there listening to it, as well as all the other residents in the Granada/Georgetown complex, whether they want to or not.  There are days that go by without meeting one single person speaking English in the elevator, or anywhere else for that matter. Nobody talks in a normal tone of voice, it's all loud, very loud, as though everyone is partically deaf!  And well they might be after listening to all that loud music all the time.

The management must be aware of this, as their office is right here at the Georgetown, but somehow nobody does anything about it, even though the lease specifically says people have to respect the rights of others by keeping their stereos down, no loud parties after a certain time, etc.  Those days are gone!  Now it's anything goes.  So you see, it's not just your section of Framingham, Bob, it's everywhere.