I found two photos of an old car among photographs from our earlier days. I immediately assumed it was the car that belonged to our neighbor in Pittsburgh but Dean didn’t remember taking a photo of it. I just showed him the photos and he said that’s what it must be. This story is less about the car and more about the guilt I still carry about not doing something when I saw mail piling up on the neighbor’s front porch.

Dean and I lived in Pittsburgh from September 1982 through June 1985 while Dean earned a PhD in Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University. We lived on the 3rd floor of a 3-flat on College Street in the Shadyside area. The home next door was occupied by a woman who’d lived there for decades. We spoke to her occasionally and I even gave her our phone number to call if she needed anything. Dean probably spoke to her even more, because one day she told him that she still had her old car in the small garage in her backyard but since her husband died no one drove it. I don’t know if she showed it to him or if he peeked in through the windows, but he must have taken photos of it because I found them among our photographs from our Pittsburgh days.

Dean thought it was a Model T, but I see now that it was a Chevrolet, so probably a 490 touring series, according to The National Museum of Transportation.

Our houses were very close to each other, and about the same height. Our living room window looked into a window of her house that might have been a bedroom at one time, or perhaps it was an attic. I don’t know if the woman ever went up to that room because the view we had never changed. It was always of a box of cat food. Purina, if I recall correctly.

One day when I returned from work I noticed that mail was sticking out of the mailbox. For the next few days that mail piled up. I knew I should probably call the police or something, but I thought that should be up to the mail carrier. I don’t know how long this went on, but one day emergency vehicles were in front of her house, police, fire trucks, ambulance. I didn’t stick around to see what happened, but went to my apartment and tried to not think about it. Not long afterward the house was sold and remodeled. It is now a duplex.

I should have called the police as soon as I noticed the mail piling up. It’s as simple as that.

On another note, I have gone down a rabbit hole looking at street views of our old apartment building. That’ll have to wait for another post.