Good Neighbor: Someone you can rely on

A decade ago, David Pratt fell from the roof of his home while hanging Christmas lights. He didn’t call 911. Instead, he asked his son to dial the neighbor’s number.

Larry Boatwright had heard the crash and immediately came over, wrapped Pratt in a blanket and then waited with him for the ambulance to arrive.

It’s just one of the good deeds Boatwright has done in the 14 years David and Dianne Pratt have lived next door, the couple said.

“He’s one of those people who just gives, and gives and gives,” Dianne Pratt said. “It’s that open-door policy that we know we can rely on him. It’s wonderful.”

Boatwright said that’s what neighbors should do.

“Everybody up here just helps everybody,” he said. “If you need some help, you can count on somebody to help you out.”

From the beginning, when the Pratts moved next to Larry and Shirley Boatwright on Highland Drive in Coeur d’Alene, Larry Boatwright came to their aid, Dianne Pratt said.

Her cat often got stuck in the tree and Boatwright would fetch it with a ladder.

During heavy snowfalls, he plows their driveway and has repaired their shared mailbox. He gives meat from his hunting trips, and the Boatwrights bring back souvenirs from their travels.

He’s often generous with tools and equipment he rents, offering to let his neighbors borrow the item before he returns it, Dianne Pratt said. And he does the same with rented movies.

“He’s always thinking about us and how to make things easier on us,” Pratt said. “He’s always been really handy and really helpful.”

After Pratt fell from the roof, Boatwright didn’t want him doing repairs on the steep-pitched house, so he did it himself, Dianne Pratt said.

“For years, it’s everything,” she said. “Always available, always there.”

The Boatwrights also have taken a personal interest in the Pratts’ two children. When their son was 5 years old, his school had a grandparents day. The grandparents lived out of town, so Boatwright filled in.

When the two Pratt kids, now 19 and 16, played out in the snowdrifts, Shirley Boatwright ushered them into her home, warming them with hot chocolate and feeding them “whatever they wanted,” Dianne Pratt said.

When the U.S. Treasury came out with the new quarter designs, Larry Boatwright kept an eye out for the Pratts’ daughter, who collected the coins.

She’s now at the University of Idaho, and Boatwright took her out to lunch when he attended a conference in the Moscow area, Pratt said.

“I think he just makes an ideal neighbor,” she said.