Ben Levinson just raised the bar on neighborliness in Santa Clara.
Dusk was falling, and he was walking around the block a little later than usual with Rocky, his nine-and-a-half-year-old yellow lab. He and his wife had just eaten Friday night carry-out (Japanese) for dinner and finished watching the Formula 1 race on TV.
Levinson and Rocky veered off the sidewalk and into the road to bypass a neighbor cutting back the juniper hedge in front of her house, bordering the sidewalk. The juniper overhung the sidewalk by about a foot and a half in places. The woman was clipping away diligently with small hand clippers and dropping the trimmings into a yard waste cart.
In passing, Levinson and she exchanged greetings.
“I got a public nuisance notice from the City,” explained the neighbor, who didn’t want to be named. “I have 30 days from the date of the notice to cut the juniper back from the sidewalk. Or pay a $750 fine.”
“I’ve got hedge trimmers. I could do that for you in just a few minutes,” said Levinson.
“Oh, that’s so kind of you, but I couldn’t ask you to do that,” said the neighbor, who had seen Levinson walking his dog before and said “Hi” but didn’t know him.
“It’s going to rain tomorrow. How about Sunday?” said Levinson.
“What’s your name?” asked the neighbor. “Where do you live?”
Thinking further about timing, Levinson said, “How about if I drive back in ten minutes and prune it now?”
And so, he did. In the 20 minutes before dusk became night, he used his cordless hedge trimmer and long-handled loppers to cut back the juniper so that it no longer overhung the sidewalk.
“Why did you do this for me?” asked the neighbor.
“You looked like you were working so hard, and you didn’t have the right tools,” said Levinson, a native Californian. “I don’t like to see anybody struggling with the wrong tools, and I have the right tools.”
“I like this neighborhood. People are friendly and nice and keep their yards up,” continued Levinson, who has lived there since 1992. “I like doing yard work. It’s relaxing for me.”
Then, he stashed his pruning tools in the car and drove home in the dark.
Won’t You Be My Neighbor is a column where we casually interview people we meet in Silicon Valley. The Won’t You Be My Neighbor column hopes to highlight what makes Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and the rest of the South Bay special — the people who live, work and play here.
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