Posted on 06/07/2017 11:21:34 AM PDT by simpson96
I am glad I am this old so I don’t have to live in this cold, uncaring world for 50 more years. Many Americans appear to have become shallow, immoral, intolerant, and hateful.
Let me tell you about my Southern California neighborhood. I have lived in this one for 22 years. I don’t know anyone, but it’s not for lack of trying. Each time a new neighbor moves in I bake a loaf of bread and take it to them. They thank me at the door and then close it. That is the last I see of them other than when they go to their cars.
One neighbor was pregnant and her husband was employed, so I gave her my phone number just in case she needed anything. She thanked me and didn’t give me her number. We spoke over the fence occasionally, but not in any way that would turn us into buddies or even casual friends. They moved.
Our newest neighbors dropped a card on our front porch before their bread was baked to tell us their names and gave us their phone number. I still have it four years later. I baked the bread and the mister thanked me at the door. I have never met the Mrs. in person.
I hosted a coffee klatch and made up fliers and put them on the 12 nearest homes. I got donuts, cut up fruit, and made coffee and tea. Six people came, drank the tea, and no one touched the donuts or fruit. They chatted about who all used to live here in this neighborhood over the years, said thank you and left. No one asked a single question of me. I have never been to their homes or had a conversation with any of them since.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
That can happen in transient neighborhoods, people don’t form attachments because they’ll be gone in a few years’ time. On odd occasion, you’ll run into one of those sweet, happy cul de sac neighborhoods (and they always are for whatever reason) where there’s always a barbecue or a block party and everybody’s not just welcome but they turn up, bearing hostess gifts. When you find yourself there, don’t leave. You’ll regret it. It’s a very rare thing anymore.
Maybe they all think the bread is poisoned.
Consider yourself lucky. Most news reports I see now make me realize how lucky I am to not have neighbors.
My brother and I were chatting this week about how much fun we had growing up as compared to kids today. Oh my gosh we left home by noon and were simply told to be back home by dinner time!...... We’d wander through our town finding all sorts of fun things to do......from pulling fire escape stairs down to ride as they were let go of , or somebody yelled at us to stop doing so! LOLOL..to climbing up the surrounding hills to build campfires and roast hotdogs! .....the only fears we had of people were if we were doing something that might be dangerous, like going out on the pond when the ice was too thin.
People looked out for kids then....neighbors had no fear of angry parents if their kids got in trouble for doing something they shouldn’t. It was understood and respected... Today you have to be very careful what you say to someones children let alone warn them of danger.....best just to mind ones own business now days.
The only time our neighbors come out is for “Neighborhood Night Out” in July....and that is dwindling....we started it, and also have had parties, inviting neighbors for food and libations. Got ONE invite to a neighbors house over 8 years...people seem to be ONLY in their little worlds, or else we have really bad breath. I am also a political person, but I don’t start conversations about it...just put signs in our yard...that MAY be the issue. But, honestly, they do like free food/drink.
Today’s young professionals are, for the most part, total turds.
About 8 years ago new neighbors move in next door. My wife baked a cake and we went next door to meet them. They refused the cake and said not to bother them again.
The following year they called the rodent control people on us and 8 other neighbors for maintaining bird feeders. It cost each of us $125 in fines.
The following year my wife put out a new bird feeder (yeah, I know dumb) and this time it cost me $200.
Thank God they moved away 3 years ago. Now we have real neighbors, not a**holes.
Doesn’t mean you’re a good person. I think you’re not bothering to see from the other side. The “obvious” for HER was that somebody she’d NEVER MET was coming with her bloodied child. It’s not like she just up and shot you, she just had somebody else listening just in case.
When I was a kid I slipped on the ice going to school and one of the houses on the way took me in because I was pretty obviously in a bad way. She bothered to understand the optics of the situation, got my name, called the school, gave them the run down, they called my mom and sent somebody to where I was. Everybody put in the effort to understand how it could look and reassure everybody else. Frankly the attitude problem here is yours, completely unwilling to understand what information she had and what assumptions she was not willing to make. That’s how dumb people get shot by the cops, get out of your own head once in a while and think from the other person’s perspective.
My brother and friends and I would hit the local ball field about 8am, return home for lunch for a 1/2 hour and then be back out on the field until sunset. In the middle of the summer, in the desert.
I had family for many years in Port Townsend, Washington, some parts of which have a gorgeous view, some parts of which were and possibly still are plagued by odor from the paper mill up the way. Those family members have long since removed to the saner side of the Cascades but I still remember their absolute amazement and disgust at being taxed at a much higher, exhorbitant rate due to adding a second story to their house. Houses were taxed on the view. They did have a minor issue with neighbors behind for that reason, but those neighbors lost because they had no view, it was a one story house with evergreens on the view side.
...”She bothered to understand the optics of the situation”....
You just made my point.
No ill will intended, but I don't want to be good friends with them...just good neighbors.
It sounds like the author of this article might come on a little too strong.
I had a neighbors behind us that came on a little too strong but were very very friendly, wanting to do things, go places with us.
When we first move into our new home she commented on the fact I worked 12-14 hours a day 6 days a week. Her comment to my wife was, "are you sure he's really at his job, not at a girl friends?"
Then, within days of that remark, she said, "she likes to cut her husband's hair AND he likes her to be topless when she cuts it. This comment was made in front of my 17 YO son!!
On another occasion, one evening, I was sorting some slide pictures in our dinning room. The house this neighbor lived in had a window that looked toward my dinning room window. The very next day she ask my wife what was I doing in the dining room last night!! As if it was any of HER business.
On another occasion, she told us she and her husband were concerned that our big bedroom window would look into her bedroom. So, while our house was being built she came into our unfinished house, stood by the big window, pulled her top off to expose herself, while her husband looked from her bedroom window. She said she was afraid we could look at her at night. However, HER BR window was a single double hung pane at an angle to our window and their house's elevation was about 5 ft higher than ours. NO way could we look into their BR.
She also had little ankle biter dogs, that would stand at my fence, barking incessantly but when we ask her to not let them bark for hours she stopped speaking to us. She was like a Mrs Kravis neighbor who was always in our business. They have thankfully moved but the replacement neighbors also have barking dogs. In fact she came to our door with her huge dog to introduce herself and attempted to bring her dog into my home. I refused to let her in and now they don't speak to us (don't care a lick). I'd like to have a dog but our yard is too small but my dogs have always been outside dogs and I would never bring a dog I owned into a neighbors house uninvited!!!!
In my opinion the definition of a good neighbor is: one that lives about a half mile away.
Our neighborhood is NOT diverse...except politically...mostly whiteys....actually ALL whiteys...and still very limited in contact.
Every generation, another particle of dust in the wind. The younger ones have yet to know it.
Perfect illustration!
You sound like me, I grew up in the middle of glorious nowhere with the nearest neighbor not really even in shouting distance. I like the idea of being close to restaurants and bars, and enjoy visiting the homes of friends in older, well-kept neighborhoods where walking to a night out is a frequent occurrence. But, I just can’t do it, I’ve looked in those neighborhoods, some of the houses are awesome and I’d dearly love to live nearby my friends. I just can’t do it, though. The thought of seeing neighbors inside their house through my windows, just no. Obnoxious city restrictions like having to consult the municipal arborist before you trim your crepe myrtles and being fined or required to replace a tree you cut down don’t help, either. I guess I’ll be out in the middle of acreage somewhere for the rest of my life.
No actually I just showed you’re wrong. You still can’t be bothered to understand what it looks like when a complete stranger comes walking up with your bloodied kid. It does NOT look like a good samiritan.
Also you don’t know what was going on before hand. For all we know she’d objected to getting the kid a bike and the person on the other side of the call insisted, and it was an “I told you so” call.
We were told America would be "transformed" by the Kenyan occupant of his White Hut. Mission accomplished.
Maybe she should try what Hubby and I did a couple years ago. Now granted we already knew our neighbors and got along with them, so maybe that doesn’t count... Anyway, it was a nice summer evening, and we decided to watch the sunset from our cul de sac in lawn chairs with a bottle of wine. We’d been sitting there, sipping our wine about half an hour when our next door neighbors came home, so we invited them to grab glasses and lawn chairs, and join us. They did. Apparently, we were having enough of a good time, that we got the attention of a couple more neighbors who came out in the cul de sac to see what we were up to. Before long, we had 4 couples out in the middle of the cul de sac, the sun had set, several more bottles had been acquired from different homes, and we were enjoying our impromptu party. We were probably out there for about 3 hours. Had a blast.
LOL! We had one at my first job. He would make the rounds of the aisle of cubicles two or three times a day. One coworker made a train track out of construction paper, laid it on the aisle, told everyone but "Bob" about it, and the next time "Bob" made the rounds, the prankster yelled, "Toot toot! It's the 10:05 Bob!"
It took "Bob" about three rounds to finally realize what it meant and that we were highly amused by this. But it was days gone by, so people laughed good-naturedly; not snarkily.
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