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February 10, 2002 the people in my neighborhood I was sitting on my patio having tea with my house-ghost, Louie, when we heard a loud commotion on the front porch of the Alhambra.  Louie and I had been quietly debating whether a certain bird at my feeder was a House Finch or a Purple Finch when the disruption in our peace occurred.  Parenthetically, let me add a few details here:  First, I was sipping Earl Grey while Louie was drinking "Celestial Seasonings" (he finds this funny); second, all of our discussions are done "quietly" because nobody can see Louie except me and it is hard to make a living wearing a straightjacket; third, Louie would not know a Purple Finch from a parrot; and finally, the loud commotion was quite expected because it was almost noon on a mail-delivery day which meant mail was being left on my front porch by Mr. McFeely and his dog, Magoo. My postman is blind and the U.S. Postal Service has assigned him both a driver and a seeing-eye dog named, ha ha, Magoo.  I talked to him one day as he was trying to force a telephone bill into the front of my pants.  Apparently, Mr. McFeely was blinded in a shooting accident (at work) and, after his discharge from the hospital, he sued for accommodation of his disability under the Americans With Disabilities Act.  So McFeely is driven to my neighborhood where he delivers mail with the help of his German Shepherd, Magoo. You can tell when McFeely and Magoo have arrived.  Large bundles of mail are dropped on to the porch or stuffed into the dirt of my window-box.  Only a few pieces make it into my mailbox and even fewer pieces are intended for me.  So I wait until carrier and canine are gone and I gather the scattered mail, sort it, and deliver it to the proper addressees--Cat Fancy magazine to my landlady who has five cats; overdraft notices to the banker across the street; vintage copies of Boys Life and Tiger Beat to the retired priest who lives in the St. Patrick Hospital rectory; etc. A deaf-mute psychotherapist, a Parkinsonian urologist, a divorced and dead roommate, a blind postman and his seeing-eye dog.  These are the people in my neighborhood.

©  2002 by the beastmaster