Living in Mayberry

[bluegargantua]

Hi,

So, today the house phone rings. We have a land line for...some reason. But we do. It's for emergencies and we never get any calls on it except from telemarketers (who quickly hang up when I mention I'm on the do-not-call list) and automated messages from the town.

The town likes to call up its citizens and let them know when street repairs will be going on, when the flu clinics are taking place, etc. This morning I got one of the longest, and most interesting calls I think I've ever received from an automatic phone call.

It was the chief of police and he had a little story. Seems like there's this family in town, the Smiths we'll call them. Last year, Mr. Smith was in a terrible accident and although he survived, he is now confined to a wheelchair. The problem is that Mr. Smith's house has no capacity for wheelchair-bound people and he hasn't been able to live with his family for months now.

So he did what every red-blooded American would do in such a situation and applied to be on ABC's Extreme Makeovers to try and get his house renovated and be on TV.

Well, with a story like his, and the support of local townspeople, he was a can't-miss shoe-in and this morning the ABC crew arrived to surprise him and let him know he was selected and that they'd be doing his house.

The chief of police related this little narrative to me for two reasons: 1.) a couple of streets will be blocked off while they're filming the renovations 2.) on the 29th, the last day of the makeover, when the Smith's return to their new home, the city of Maynard is basically having a pep rally for them and we're invited.

I hope the snowstorm doesn't disrupt their plans too badly.

I live in a weird town...
Tom

Comments

[velvetdragon64.livejournal.com]

That is soo cool!
They didn't ask you to volunteer to help build?
This is happening this month? Wow!

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

There was an episode of that show shot in a town down on the coast last year. The people involved had some professional connection to my mother, so I heard about it over and over from her, but even if I hadn't, I'd know about it anyway. It was frickin' statewide news at the time, and again when the show aired a month or so ago.

The really striking thing about it, though, was the rancor it sparked in the reader comments on the Bangor Daily News website. Whole bands of the readership were overcome with bitchiness. There were a lot of posts like, "Those people don't deserve all that free stuff. It's a disgrace. They'd be all right if they'd just stop having kids."

It's amazing how something like that will really bring a community together.

Here's hoping Maynard has better luck than, well, pretty much the entire state of Maine had. :)

[bluegargantua]

The accident-to-wheelchair angle makes this guy's position pretty unassailable. Although there were no specifics, it seems likely that he was just completely unlucky and had no part in the accident that befell him.

later
Tom

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

Whoa. That's intense.

I think where I live has a small town feel.

But dooood.

[foxtown.livejournal.com]

Aww, that's cute.

[milknut.livejournal.com]

Last night, innermonkey and I went to the planning board meeting for our town. We asked one of our neighbors where his brother was (they live next door to each other and are equally involved in the drama of our development). We were told that he's helping out a friend who's an electrician who is working on a house in your town that will be on Extreme Makeover. We think he's just out for his 15 minutes o' fame. :)

[sla.livejournal.com]

I got a plea from my school (Cambridge School of Culinary Arts) to provide free catering from my company that could include a banner for advertising for this very event. Too bad I am unemployed. Apparently this is the family of someone I went to school with.

-steph

[drwex]

That's really kinda neat.

[boxninja.livejournal.com]

Wow. Let us know how it turns out.