The neighbor you wish you had...02/20/2006 02:51 PMKen Stahl has been my neighbor going on nine years. We first met while the neighborhood was under construction ten years ago. Ken and Bobbie were building on the lot two up from where Pat and I were. They finished and moved in a couple of weeks ahead of us. As two of the first residents of a new subdivision we, of course got together and shared war stories about the building process, old neighbors and neighborhoods and any of the hundreds of other things. Ken found out that I was a geek, actually making a living with computers. Like many of your neighbors, he almost instantly made me his help desk. Normally I laugh off such requests with the casual "Well, I really do not do hardware and windows OS support." Yet over the years I have made many "service" calls to Ken. Why I have done this should be obvious if you read on.
Early on, I learned that Ken, while not quite as discriminating as I, had an appreciation for finer forms of adult beverages. He particularly enjoys the "Family Brew" and took to having some around whenever I visit. He bragged about how good it was to any of the neighbors who would listen at one of the early block picnics. It has since become traditional to cook a Pig and drink a bottle of van Winkle at the annual event. Ken is a frequent visitor at the cooker each year.
Occasionally, my cousin, Julian Van Winkle, comes tot he Cincinnati area for a bourbon related event. Twice I have had the opportunity to attend and sent advance notice to several friends and acquaintances. Each time, the only one who wanted to go enough to figure our how to fit it into his schedule was Ken, who brought along some other friends. We each learned a lot about bourbon and friendship at those events.
When I needed help getting network and phone wiring right in my house, Ken came down with his tools. Ken is retired from the local phone company where he had been a line man long enough to have a good set of tools. We got the place installed with multiple CAT 5 cables and two 110 punch-down blocks in no time. Years later he helped me do a similar job at Germania to support multiple phone lines used during our Oktoberfest and Christkindlmarkt events. Of course there was van Winkle or beer(s) involved.
At some point Ken and Bobbie became our cat sitters so that when Pat and I travel they are tasked to come by twice a day and make sure the two cats are still there. This has included the occasional requirement of giving a sick cat a pill, which anyone who has ever had a cat knows is not a simple task, Pat and I have traveled a fair amount so Ken and Bobbie are frequently called upon and they are always ready and willing. One time while planning for a trip and the timing of when they were going to cover, Ken asked how we were getting to and from the airport. I was either going to hire a car (taxi) or drive over and park our car at the airport. Ken offered to take us and pick us up and would not take "No" for an answer. He, and his grandson Ben, became our drivers to and from the airport for the last three years.
Lately Ken has had some physical setbacks. Asthma bothered him this summer making it hard to get up and down the hill to the Pig Roast last fall. The doctors figured that out and got him on some sort of pill cocktail to relieve the asthma. Then last week the pills or something else caused a severe case of Pancreatitus which got him into the hospital. There he got pneumonia and ended up on a respirator in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). For several days he has been drugged to the point that he does not fight the respirator. This week they are going to see if they can get him off the respirator.
With any luck, Ken will slowly get back on his feet over the next several weeks and get back to his"work." One of his jobs is being my neighbor and another is messing up his home PC so I can do a little neighborly support back...
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