I recently spent some quality time with some longtime residents of a particular neighborhood in Mountlake Terrace, who really restored my faith in good people.
I have to say it was quite refreshing to see such a camaraderie between neighbors – they are a tight knit group who obviously care about each other and their neighborhood.
Most of them have lived there for 30-plus years. The one person I talked to who had lived there for only two years found out quickly, he said, what a special group they all were and was pleased.
I was visiting these good people for an upcoming feature article I’m writing about one of their neighbors who is very dear to them, Roger Johnson, 82, who is now very ill and dying from leukemia.
It might even be appropriate to call him the king of their neighborhood. They all know who he is, including the children.
Johnson isn’t just a good neighbor, waving “hi” as you drive by or picking up your mail when you’re out of town. For the past 15 years Johnson has been taking the garbage to the curb and bringing the cans back up for about 60 homes in this neighborhood.
Yes, I said bringing the garbage down to the street and then taking the cans back up for up to 60 homes – every week! This of course now includes recycle and yard waste. He does other things for neighbors also.
He started out just helping those who he found needed the extra help: Older widows, those who were disabled, etc., but for many years now he has done the whole neighborhood, no matter the age or the situation, “one for all, all for one,” Johnson says.
At a moment’s notice, several neighbors gathered in one’s living room to talk about how wonderful a person this man is and how they want to show their appreciation to a man who has led a good life and who has made a difference in others.
“There’s no way to thank him enough,” one of the neighbors told me. And they could’ve told me good stories about this man all night long.
After meeting with this fine group, I wandered over to the Roger and Helen Johnson home and found them both waiting for their son and granddaughter to come for dinner. They were very inviting, warm and delightful people. Roger is a very humble man whose last days are filled worrying about who will help those in his neighborhood who really need it after he’s gone.
Read more about Roger and this neighborhood in my feature in the Nov. 22 edition of the Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace editions of the Enterprise.
Hopefully, this article will encourage more people to get out and get to know your neighbors and inspire more to give a helping hand to those who need it most, if you check, they might live right next door.
Shannon Sessions is editor of the Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace editions of The Enterprise.
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