My Momma always said "Don't get thick with the neighbors" and I followed her advice. The problem is she always had strong men available to use wrenches when it came to plumbing problems. My men were not wrench savvy. Black Cloud tended to throw wrenches when he got too close to them and Dan preferred to let things "heal naturally" for a few months before calling a plumber.

The day he died in the living room 17 years ago, a plumber was hard at work in the bathroom growling at pipes that refused to heal without professional intervention. People who visited Dan the month he came home to die would murmur sadly "How can we help" and I would say "Know anything about toilets?"

So this weekend when a gentle cascade of water began in the bedroom toilet I shut the door to invoke healing. Last night I took the lid off and wedged a wooden spoon under the ball cock and the cascade abated. This morning during an inspection for spontaneous healing I nudged the wooden spoon and hurricane Katrina burst forth.

The Westerly neighbor, Archie was planting turnips in his garden so I hallooed him over to shut off the water. The bathroom is so small Dan described it this way. "If you tried to read a newspaper in the master bathroom you'd break both your arms." Luckily Archie is not a large man and he was able to wedge back by the wall and shut off the water. As far as I was concerned the door could be nailed shut and plastered over. That wasn't the only toilet in Dodge and it had failed me.

A few minutes later Archie was back with a Fluidmaster thing and had it on in 15 minutes. "Turnips" I protested, "Don't stop your gardening for plumbing!" He laughed. He knew he was a good neighbor and proved it. Momma should have lived next door to Archie and Velma.