The Best Block Party Ever

A Friday evening in San Jose during the COVID lockdown, and the neighbors were desperate to get out of the house. Four of them sat in lawn chairs six feet apart on Glen’s driveway, nobody wearing masks, as they drank beer, talked about vaccines, neighbors who had moved out, and the 49’ers quarterback prospects. Glen had a SF Giants hat on, but there wasn’t much talk about baseball. Glen had taught school near here and finally become a principal. Now he was retired but still did school events and had yard signs for every bond issue on the ballot. Everyone knew Glen.

Except Ellen McFarland, who didn’t know anyone. Ellen was in her late 30s, divorced with no kids. She was polite to neighbors who approached her, and she had gardeners who kept her yard neat, but she mostly just went to her job at Google. She had friends who lived elsewhere and didn’t even think of neighbors as social contacts. She’d walk to where the Google shuttle bus stopped, but that was the extent of her neighborhood contact. Now that everyone was working from home, she was hardly even doing that.

Now she was strolling around with her dad Frank, who was visiting from Detroit. Glen called out and invited them to join. She looked at Frank questioningly, and he said “why not?” Glen handed them beers.

Glen had a dog, Ivy, that he’d gotten from a rescue organization. There were two dogs, Ernie and Ivy, who kept everyone entertained. Ivy lavished kisses on Ernie, who patiently just dodged her. Ernie was a Labrador so friendly that he was positive all humans and dogs were just friends he hadn’t met yet. He’d even wag his tail while on a walk when he saw someone’s garage door up, because he just loved to sniff around garages, houses, or yards. Right now he was making the rounds to let everyone pet him.

Ivy was a young German Shepherd mix whose training was, let’s say, a work in progress. Glen had kept her leashed up so she couldn’t easily run away or get at Ernie. When Ernie dodged her one more time, Dan, whose dog Ernie was, said, “He’s just not that into you, Ivy!”

The neighborhood was getting to be all techies nowadays, mostly Chinese and Indian, with a few old-timer white folks still left. Apple had been nearby in Cupertino since its birth, and Tandem Computers, whose site on Pruneridge became DEC, and then HP, and now was the Spaceship, was just a couple miles away. It seemed like all the new arrivals were Asian families where husband and wife both worked in tech, so they could afford the insane house prices.

Frank was happy to meet some genuine Silicon Valley folks. He was amazed that they looked like normal people! He thought everyone here had pocket protectors and short-sleeved white shirts, or else beards and dirty T-shirts. One of them, Jerry, was an HVAC contractor, about 30, and his father was there, too, in a 49’ers shirt. There was also a Chinese guy, who said his name was Lee, and his wife, Jane.

Another one, Dan, did sort of resemble the programmers Ellen knew from Google. Somehow they just had that look, she wasn’t sure what it was. A neatly trimmed beard, glasses, average height? She took the chair next to him so they could play the “do you know …?” game that all Valley people played when they met. Everyone had worked in a bunch of different places and you always knew someone in common. They found someone they both knew within 30 seconds.

Frank was his usual gregarious self. Ellen sometimes got exasperated when he chatted up strangers on the street and told them the same stories about his youth in Detroit that she’d heard a million times, and now he was telling one to Dan. This time it was the story about how he’d sold morning newspapers to workers coming off their shifts at the auto plant. Dan laughed as Frank said most of them just wanted to head for the tavern, even though it was 6:00 am. For them, it was the end of their shift and they needed that shot and a beer. There were taverns that opened early for those guys. Dan talked about all the greasers in his high school whose fathers worked in the steel mills in Chicago.

Ellen asked Glen, “So how long have you lived here?”

“Actually, all my life! I grew up on the next street over.”

“Wow. So was it all orchards when you were growing up?”

Glen smiled. “It was already changing. They were just putting in these houses when I was growing up. We used to pick prunes and apricots for the farms over across Rainbow.”

That caught Frank’s attention, who said, “So you were here before it was Silicone Valley!”

Glen said, “Silicon. Yeah, there were a few electronics companies, like HP. But mostly fruit trees. Does anyone need another beer?”

No one did. Dan jumped in. “Is it true that people here used to do circuit assembly in their garages for a side job?”

Glen laughed. “Oh yeah. We all did. They’d drop off the parts, we’d stuff the circuit boards, and they’d pay us by the piece. All the big electronics companies did it.”

Ellen said, “I’ve heard that. Even Apple, although they don’t like to admit it now.”

Lee and his wife had been silent all this time, but now he was incredulous. “You built integrated circuits in your garages? Really?” Glen said, “No, no! This was before IC’s. Now it’s too hard for ordinary people.” He turned to Jane and said something in Chinese, and her eyes got wide. She said, “I’m an engineer for Intel. We use big factories for that!” Glen said, “That was a long time ago!” Lee repeated it to her.

Glen was reminiscing now. “We used to block off the street and have block parties here in the summer, too. Everyone would put a table out front with food on it, and you’d just walk up and down and talk to everyone.”

Frank said, “We still do that every summer in Bloomfield Hills.” Ellen said, “I remember those parties!”

Glen’s wife Margaret took Ivy inside to feed her. Ivy resisted, until Margaret said, “Treat, Ivy!” Glen went off in the car to get pizza. Ellen finally got to talk to her other neighbors, and they all laughed about how it had taken “social distancing” to meet each other in person. They compared notes on how bored they were staying inside.

Glen returned with the pizza, and suddenly Ivy darted onto the driveway without her leash. Glen yelled, “Ivy! Sit!” and lunged at her. She dodged away. Dan tried, with the same result. Ivy apparently thought this was the best game ever: keep away from the humans!

Margaret came out of the house yelling “Ivy! Treat!” holding out a dog treat. She also cried angrily, “Why was the door open?” to no one in particular.

Ivy ignored them all, circling around the front of the house, now with Ellen, Frank, and Dan all chasing her, too. Her circles got wider and wider, until she was running into the street. A car was headed for her but stopped short.

Margaret held hands to her face and cried in panic, “Oh, God! Ivy! Treat!”

Frank turned to Lee and said, “Let’s block off the street so no one runs into her!” Frank and Lee both took up their positions standing in the middle of the street as Glen and Ellen chased her. Ivy was way too quick for them.

Ellen said to Jerry, “So is this a block party?” He laughed, “Let’s see. They are blocking the street. No food though! Oh wait. We do have pizza!”

Lee and Jane had seen Dan and Ernie walk by their house before. Whenever they were getting in the car, they’d always wondered why the dog was looking longingly at the garage. This gave them both an idea.

“Dan, why don’t you lead your dog into our garage, and Ivy follow him?” He spoke to Jane and she ran into their house and opened the garage door.

Ernie led Dan into the garage, which was easy because Ernie always wanted to explore garages. Ivy followed, and then Glen with his leash. Jane closed the door.

Jane opened the garage door again and Glen came out with Ivy on the leash. Everyone applauded. Margaret took the leash and hugged Ivy, who tolerated it, but really just wanted to kiss Ernie.

They all returned to Glen’s driveway and ate the pizza. Glen said, “This wasn’t quite like the old block parties, but I’ll take it.” Frank just smiled.