It’s likely that everyone knows the multi-decade slogan of a national insurance company’s saying they are like a good neighbor that’s there for you. The company smartly knows that everyone wants to have a good neighbor.
The Greenes have been blessed for about
five decades with such a neighbor right next door to us.
Dr. Ron and Pat Lowe’s home was finished soon after we moved into ours. It’s an understatement to say they have been “good” neighbors.
It’s more like the best we could have found if we had gone looking for someone to be there for us.
Ron, an avid tennis player, developed his successful career as a dentist and, together with his wife, became parents to three children, daughters Cari and Cami and son, Chris who grew up with our three and shared fun together like kids do.
One of those fun times found Chris and our son, Brian, both of them around five or six years old, playing along the shoreline of the creek that runs behind our backyards. Brian came running to me that day declaring that Chris was “drowning” after having slipped into the water.
While being immediately responsive, but not really fearing his fate since the creek is not very deep, I discovered him bobbing up to his chin at the surface. I pulled him out and returned him, soaking wet, to his mother.
A few hours later Pat showed up at our back door with a pie she had baked to express appreciation for my “heroism.”
On another occasion, Ron took our granddaughter Ashley on her first fishing trip on the dam near his backyard. He taught her everything she needed to know to successfully pull in her catch (pictured here) and created a lifetime memory of his kindness.
Every Halloween when everyone in the neighborhood was treating the tricksters arriving at their doorsteps with all manner of sugary treats, Dr. Ron was handing out toothbrushes.
In that way, and many others, we shared our good neighbor with everyone in the subdivision.
For almost 50 years we traded the opportunity to keep watch on our homes when either of us was out of town. Ron faithfully checked on everything for us every day of our absence being careful to retrieve anything that would be an indication that no one was home.
I tried to do the same for him but had to admit he was better at it than me.
Throughout our friendship, Ron and Pat were always telling me how much they appreciated my service as Arlington’s mayor. No one made as many such expressions as they did. They also regularly complimented the success of our children as they pursued their careers in adulthood.
Another unique characteristic was the Lowe’s love for the natural environment. While they had only one residential lot to care for, it was largely preserved in the original, forested woodland from which it had been cut.
While the rest of the neighborhood was transformed into traditional-looking yards with trees thinned out, Ron and Pat protected theirs just as they had found it with only the exception of making room for their house to be built.
Its architecture fits perfectly into the forest.
On a typical day following his retirement, Ron would arise early to tend to every single thing that emerged from the soil to see what it would become as part of what nature intended.
Anyone curious about what the Wimbledon Addition looked like before it was developed, all they need to do is drive by the Lowe’s. It’s the only one of its kind to be found.
In a conversation several years ago as we realized we were getting older, Ron described his determination to spend his last day on earth sitting in the lawn chair on his small deck next to the creek.
That last day for Ron came a couple of weeks ago. While he wasn’t actually on that deck due to his limited mobility, he was spending his nights in his den, looking out through his expansive rear windows, just a few steps away.
Of course, we will miss him greatly. But memories of our great friend and neighbor will always be with us. Ron was 85 and he and Pat were married for 61 years.
Richard Greene is a former
mayor of Arlington.
