Day Four--Sour

Wow, what a topic.  I could go the food way and talk about sour foods, but I think I'll go in another direction.

When we first moved into this house, we had only been in this town for a couple of years.  We really didn't know anyone and with a toddler in the house, we didn't get to go to many places to meet people.  It didn't help much that we moved in on the first of March:  definitely NOT meet-the-new-neighbors weather here.  So, we didn't have much contact at all with any of our neighbors until the later part of the spring/early summer when we would be outside with The Oldest.  And that led me to know two of the sourest-looking people I have ever met in my entire life.

The M's lived almost directly across the street from us.  At the time, their youngest was a junior or senior in high school.  Mr and Mrs M were the grouchiest, crotchety-est people I had ever seen.  We would acknowledge each other and nod whenever we happened to catch each other's eye, but that was it.  As the summer wore on, and windows were being opened, I would hear the two of them screaming at each other whenever I was outside.  I never was too sure that I wanted to know these people any better than I did at the time because, frankly, they scared the crap out of me!

Gradually, we got to be very close to the M's.  They turned out to be two of the nicest people I have ever met--despite their 'sour' demeanors.  After several years, their son and his wife--K's and my age--had a daughter about the same time we had The Youngest, and the two girls became very good friends.  Mr & Mrs M came very close to being surrogate grandparents to The Youngest.  Sadly, both of them passed on several years ago and I still miss them.

Oh, and the reason they would scream at each other all of the time?  They both were a bit hard of hearing.  :D

(This is the best example of a 'sour' old man I could ever possibly find--too bad Jeff Dunham hasn't made a 'Mrs Walter' puppet yet.)