Hoagy Wamps

My brother was good for nicknaming the neighbors. Stinky Midget, The Slutz's, Mr Dumpsey, The Necrophiliac's, Herr & Frau Knight. Each name had to do something with the family's personality usually. To be fair, or just ornery, he didn't spare our own parents either. “Goddammit Edith” was my Mom. Dad was “Cough! Cough! COUGH! COUGH! AHROOOGAH! AROOOGAH!” Our Dad, for years, would waken the neighborhood with a cough that sounded like the last stages of pneumonia.

Hoagy Wamps, a neighbor, probably won that nickname only because he bore a resemblance to a long dead Big Band leader, Hoagy Carmichael.

Hoagy's passion was to perfect his yard. The front of his house looked like an English garden. All the shrubs, trees were perfectly trimmed. The lawn was clipped twice a week and watered three. I have to admit it did look nice but that kind of maintenance can only be done if you had the time. Hoagy did as he was on disability due to a health issue that was real. But to us young teens who despised anything smacking of middle class virtue, my brother and I spent a lot of time goofing on him. Then again, our yard looked like unkempt hair. I'm sure Hoagy looked with disgust on our dandelions that we let grow and might infect his healthy lawn. He may have uttered “pigs” under his breath while surveying our plot.

1981 was a summer with a bastard of a heat wave. Week after week it was nothing but steaming heat, humidity and no rain. It was also the first year, to my memory, that Pawtucket instituted water restrictions. All lawn, garden watering, car washing (including commercial car washers) were banned. It didn't bother our family in the least as we never watered the lawn, it did worry Hoagy though.

Ken, once showed me a cartoon he drew of Hoagy, in absolute despair of his lawn. He drew him laying upon it, crying out, “My babies!” as the desert sun he drew in the sky roasted them alive.

A piece of luck occurred that gave my brother a great practical joke to perform on Hoagy. We were in the living room, with the windows open but pretty quiet when we see another neighbor, Herr Knight, walk across the street to laughingly admonish Hoagy for watering his lawn during the ban. My brother and I overheard this but weren't seen listening in.

In about twenty seconds, my brother drags me upstairs to his Smith Corona typewriter, giggling to himself as I kept pestering him to tell me what was so funny. He finally let it out.

“Let's send a threatening 'cease and desist' letter to Hoagy, with a letter head from the Pawtucket Water Supply Board! He'll think it was Knight who ratted him out!”

He started guffawing after getting that out of his mouth. I too thought it was funny too, at 15, anything sophomoric and stupid is funny.

What was great about 1981? Most stationary that came from any gov't agency usually was typewritten and had no real inked letterheads. You could make up your own as long as it looked “official” enough.

Here's the letter from my memory. As for the US Postal Service prosecuting Ken? Good luck! It's a bit too late now!

Pawtucket Water Supply Board

85 Branch St

Pawtucket, RI

Dear Sir;

It has come to our attention, from an informed source, that you have been violating Section 8, subset 12a of the Emergency Water Act (enacted July 12, 1981).

During this emergency, we demand you CEASE and DESIST from watering your lawn.

If you continue to persist, we will send to your home, at no charge, a large burly man (the kind you see working the garbage trucks) to rip your sprinkler, hose and spigot from the side of your house. Our precious water cannot be wasted upon that dirt patch you call a “lawn.”

We thank you for your anticipated cooperation.

Two days later, my brother witnessed Hoagy get into his car, fire it up, drive it three houses down and skid in front of it. He then got out and started banging on the door. “MICHAEL!!! I WANT TO TALK TO YOU!!!!”

My brother tells me he can't believe Hoagy fell for it. What gov't agency sends letter like this? But the fact he went straight to Herr Knight's house was proof enough that he thought Knight had ratted him out. My brother was rolling on his bed, laughing till tears came out of his eyes.

After a bit, we assumed Knight manage to calm Hoagy and make him realized no agency would send sarcastic letters. Even though he may have realized someone was f'ing with him, he stopped watering his lawn.

This is what a bored teen boy with an imagination does during heat waves.

So long ago, both Hoagy and my brother now sing in the Choir Invisible. I wonder if he admitted it to him up there?