new neighbors.\u00a0 There are four of them and at first I was a bit leery that they are now residing on my street.\u00a0 My introduction to them was a conversation I was having one morning while taking my morning walk.\u00a0 It\u00a0went something like this..have you heard about the \u00a0Lyons up the street…no, what about them?\u00a0 Oh, wait until you see them.\u00a0 See them?\u00a0 Why, do they look funny?\u00a0 With that we rounded the corner heading for home and there they were.\u00a0 They are not Lyons, they are lions.\u00a0 Two large stately lions, a little shorter than I am and I’m 5″4″, sitting regally at the end of my neighbors driveway.\u00a0 I was in shock, oh no this can’t be happening.\u00a0 As we got closer we saw two more\u00a0guarding the garage door, one on each side.\u00a0 They are much smaller, but still very large.\u00a0 My first thought was to laugh, then I felt bad for the people that had to look out at them, and I think I was even a little mad that someone would feel they belonged in our neighborhood.\u00a0 I walked past them in silence,\u00a0 afraid that if I talked they might come alive and chase me, after all I was\u00a0making fun of them.\u00a0 As if their size is not enough they sit on a small platform and have been painted\u00a0a bright yellowy gold.\u00a0 Of course they were the talk of the neighborhood and not in the most flattering way.\u00a0 The next morning as we rounded the corner there was their owner, sitting on the ground\u00a0next to them, paint brush in hand giving them another coat of\u00a0yellowy gold.\u00a0\u00a0I could hardly wait to talk to him, not knowing exactly what I was going to say and hoping I just didn’t blurt out..are you crazy??\u00a0 As I approached him I couldn’t help but feel the love that surrounded those lions.\u00a0\u00a0He was so proud of them and he was painstakingly putting on a primer (yellowy gold) that would be the base for the real color which he explained will be\u00a0like real lions, darker brown mane etc.\u00a0 He asked us with great\u00a0enthusiasm do you know where these came from?\u00a0\u00a0My mind was racing who could they be.\u00a0 The MGM lions…the one that roars and his stand-in, or they guarded the Chicago museum, or they\u00a0stood at the end of \u00a0a\u00a0long\u00a0driveway in New Jersey that needed guarding.\u00a0 You’ll never guess, \u00a0he said again even more enthusiastically when he realized he had piqued\u00a0 my curiosity. Who, who are they I couldn’t wait another minute.\u00a0 His excitement was contagious and I could barely wait to hear.\u00a0 They are the lions that you saw every time you came out of Spanish Springs Town Square, heading south on Del Mar Drive, they resided at the home on the corner of Panama Place and Del Mar Drive.\u00a0 Oh, those lions….not really what I was thinking, but again his affection, love and\u00a0pride of ownership\u00a0for these concrete creatures was contagious, and they became just as important to me as if they were the MGM lions.\u00a0 I asked how did you get them over here and he pointed to his golf cart with a platform on the back…one at a time he said.\u00a0\u00a0 He went on to explain how he was going to be painting them, and all of a sudden I was touched by the passion he had for them.\u00a0\u00a0I walked away with a smile on my face and a warm fuzzy feeling for our new neighbors.\u00a0 Later that day I noticed two large black garbage bags over them and became concerned for their well being.\u00a0 It was then that I realized that they stole my heart.\u00a0 I really love them.\u00a0\u00a0 Welcome new neighbors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
new neighbors.\u00a0 There are four of them and at first I was a bit leery that they are now residing on my street.\u00a0 My introduction to them was a conversation I was having one morning while taking my morning walk.\u00a0 It\u00a0went something like this..have you heard about the \u00a0Lyons up the street…no, what about them?\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=765"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":770,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions\/770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}