“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?”
That’s the opening to the song written, composed, and made famous by Fred Rogers on his long-running show for children.
That song came to mind this past week when I was sitting on my front porch watching one of those beautiful sunsets put together by the Celestial Painter. The long red strokes of that brush promised fair weather in the morning; the gray border at the top told of the rain that had just fallen; the bluish-black fringes at the bottom of the scarlet stroke announced the arrival of night.
For whatever reason, my mind turned to my boyhood, ages 4-12, when I lived in Boonville, N.C., population around 800. I knew all the neighborhood kids then – and there were lots of us – but as I sat watching the sun go down, it was the adults I’d known that began emerging from one of those trunks stashed in the attic of my brain. I was astounded as that list grew to 20, 30, and even 40 men and women. Here were the names and faces of my elementary school teachers, the school’s principal, all the husbands and wives on my block and the next one over, my piano teacher, the pharmacist who owned the drugstore where I bought my Classics Illustrated comic books and baseball bubble gum, the town’s two barbers with their separate shops, the owner of the grocery store and another man who operated what today would be called a convenience store, the pastors who served our church.
Since then, nowhere else I’ve lived could possibly provide so detailed an inventory, for in none of these places did the neighbors and I really know one another. Next-door neighbors come to mind, but an apartment or a house or two beyond that and we were strangers.
The neighborhood I now call home is the same, even more so. It’s a fine place to live. The houses are large with attached garages, the lawns are enormous compared to most, yet only four families in the neighborhood are known to me, and those only vaguely. No one else avails themselves of the front porches that decorate every house; I assume if they do sit outside, it’s on the back deck. A few people, including couples with mom or dad pushing a stroller, take walks around the neighborhood. With the exception of my grandchildren, who use the front yard for soccer and playing catch with a baseball when they visit, you only see children here if they ride their bikes up and down the streets.
Those more knowledgeable than I have written about the demise of neighborhoods and the rise in America of loneliness, solitude, and the accompanying sadness and depression. Many factors account for this change, such as smaller families, rootlessness, and technology. The porch sitting and evening visits with neighbors gave way to television, then to smartphones, laptops, social media, and video games.
Though we can’t turn the clock back 50 years, some people are devising ways to enhance neighborhood connections. A case in point: Block Party USA and its founder, Vanessa Elias, have devised a free and simple way to bring neighbors into contact through their promotion of the old-fashioned block party.
A Michigan State University (MSU) publication, “Building Neighborhood Connections,” is an excellent short guide offering a multitude of ideas, noting that “neighborhoods with a higher sense of community enjoy a higher quality of life.” Some of these recommendations include complimenting your neighbor on their garden, organizing a welcome wagon for newcomers, putting together a team of three or four neighbors to clean up a vacant lot, and throwing a neighborhood yard sale. Even offering a simple hello and a smile to passersby on a sidewalk helps create this sense of fellowship.
Human beings not only need these connections, sometimes they can be crucial. Knowing who lives on our block or otherwise nearby increases our awareness of problems in the community – litter on the streets and sidewalks, crime, the safety of the neighborhood children, giving the elderly a helping hand when they need one. This awareness in turn promotes involvement.
As is the case with family members, we generally don’t get to pick our neighbors, some of whom may be disagreeable. But there may come a day when we need even their help.
This MSU guide rightly stresses one important point: “Because you live there, you are a part of the community. Whether you connect with the people around you is a choice you make.”
Which means that most of us, including me, need to be a good neighbor if we want to know our neighbors.
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The republication of this article is made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal.
Image Credit: Pexels
