Helpful Retired Firefighter Everyone’S Favorite Neighbor

When a sauced neighbor drove into his garage - and right on out through the wall on the other end - his first words weren’t remorse over driving drunk, or words of thanks for making it home at all.

Instead, he spewed: “Now I gotta call Adge.”

Friends recently laughed over the old memory when they gathered in a living room to thank Adger Moorman for decades devoted to helping his neighbors.

During times of tall weeds, leaning shelves, cracked tiles, weak roofs and buckled floors, the cry goes out across North Spokane: Call Adge! Adge will do it.

Adge (it rhymes with badge), is Adger Moorman, a retired Spokane firefighter and North Side neighbor with a reputation.

For almost 40 years, Moorman has helped friends and family with any and all fix-its, errands and even babysitting.

Vickie Huth calls him a fairy godfather.

She recalls her first winter in her home, struggling to shovel snow from the driveway, with no luck.

“I work two jobs, and that night when I came home - it was done,” she said. She discovered Moorman was the mystery shoveler.

Another time she came home and found her overgrown weeds all neatly mowed.

“I don’t know if I should kiss him or pay him,” gushes Huth.

“Pay me,” jokes Moorman.

But, neighbor Mollie Obrecht says “offering Adge recompense is like offering ice cubes to an Eskimo.”

Obrecht has known Moorman, a South Carolina native, since he landed at Fairchild Air Force Base 46 years ago.

After living in California for years, Obrecht recently returned to her friends and neighborhood near Esmeralda golf course.

Moorman, 65, was there to help remodel the house, work on her radiator, adjust her lawn sprinklers.

“He even picked up my drycleaning one day,” says Obrecht. “I wasn’t used to having neighbors run over and help.”

Not to be out done, Vesta Bambino, Moorman’s aunt-in-law, describes Moorman rescuing a dog that had fallen into her swimming pool.

“Thank goodness I didn’t have to give it mouth-to-mouth,” shudders Moorman.

His wife, Marlene, doesn’t resent the time he spends helping neighbors. He’s exactly the same at home, she says.

One evening, she speculated it might be nice to open up a wall between the living room and an unused bedroom for some extra space.

In the middle of the night she woke up to the sound of sawing. Her husband was starting the project.

“I thought about it, and thought it was a good idea,” he says.

Joyce Rae met the couple 42 years ago when her family moved next door to them on East Frederick Street, near Minnehaha Park.

While the Raes were eating dinner one night, they heard young Moorman outside. Anxious to impress his bride, he had told her he could jump over the fence separating the two yards. He missed. He went down, so did the fence.

Moorman fetched his hammer and fixed the fence. The first of many projects for the Raes.

She makes him a banana pie each year as a thank you for the many projects he helps her with.

“I get a lot of free lunches,” says Moorman.

“We hear so much about all the fights and squabbles, it’s nice to know there are some good people in the world,” says Obrecht.