Mourning Ross, a perfect neighbor

I was high up on a ladder, sprucing up the house with a little paint, when I looked over and saw a younger couple – obviously expecting a child very soon -- checking out the house for sale next door. I scrambled down to give them the neighborhood sales pitch, assuring them that lots of younger couples like us were moving in.

My wife still teases me about considering myself “young” like them. But it was clear they were a nice couple. That’s how I met Ross Fabricant.

Ross and his wife wound up buying the house, raising two great boys to baseball-playing age, and then moving to Atlanta for a better job. It was enough time to get to know Ross as a quite a character – in the best sense of the word. We kept in touch sporadically. I sent him a Facebook note last year, but he gave no hint that he was ill. Last night, I learned that Ross had died on Saturday.

He was the perfect neighbor for me.

We discussed whether we should go halves on an awesome sniper rifle for sale at the gun show down at the fairgrounds. Ross had decided that he could trust me to back him up “when the bad guys come down the street.”

He bought a huge generator for when the Big One hits Tallahassee, and he seemed almost disappointed as each hurricane season would pass with Tallahassee untouched. Just toss an extension cord out your bathroom window, he would tell me, and we’ll keep your refrigerator running.

Once, after mowing my lawn on a brutal July afternoon, I turned around to see one of his sons holding a cold bottle of Yuengling. “Here, Mr. Mark,” the boy said. Ross knew I would need it.

Then there was the time a deputy had to Taze his dogs when they were fighting over a possum. That story gets better each time I tell it.

We had great conversations, literally over the fence. I had my liberal leanings; Ross had his libertarian tilt. Yet I remember him considering Jeb Bush’s view that we didn’t need government, that we’d all somehow take care of each other, and saying, “It’s like he wants us to live on a little kibbutz.”

Even though I’m not a great correspondent, I knew I would see Ross again this November. That’s because we made a bet, nearly four years ago. He said Barack Obama would be a one-term president; I thought things might work out a bit better.

If Obama were to win this November, Ross would have to come back to Tallahassee and buy us each a beer; if Obama lost, I’d have to drive to Atlanta to do the same.

I’m so sorry we won’t get to share that beer in either place. Ross, we’ll miss you.