I hear Mr. Rogers singing as I type this (“won’t you be my neighbor….”). Seriously though, as an about 50 year old, I have had mostly great neighbors in my life. Actually growing up we had sort of a grouch for a neighbor. I think I’ll post about him one day. However, today I want to talk about the value of having great neighbors because really good neighbors are priceless!
Of course, you can’t always know how great your neighbors will be as looks can be deceiving and people move. However, if you have little kids and you see a bunch of kiddy bikes in the front yards on a street you are looking at that’s a good sign. Trying to find like-minded neighbors is great. That doesn’t mean you have to be clones but have some similar interests. For example, our current neighbors are all the other political party from me, and sure I wish I wasn’t the lone guy on the island, but having different politics isn’t a big deal. What is a big deal is they all have kids, most of the kids are similar ages to mine, they all are professional college educated people, and they are all within a few years age-wise of us which is great.
Having said the above I truly think we hit the neighbor gold-mine where we live. Over 15 years there and I truly trust all of them. If there was an emergency and I needed to ask one of them to take care of my kids, or anything else that might come up, I wouldn’t hesitate. They are all good people. We aren’t best friends with all of them as we have different interests but we are all friendly and when we have a neighborhood get-together, as we did last night, it is always nice to talk to all of them!
How did we get to the point of having this incredible group of neighbors? Some of it is dumb luck of course. If I counted all 7 houses that made the court we had 15 kids at one point and now two houses have moved so down to a net of 11 kids as we have a new baby at one of the new neighbor’s house. There is probably about a 10 year age spread from top to bottom but most of them are within 5 years of each other and currently 4 of them are in the exact same grade at school. So that’s lucky.
Beyond the luck what have we done? When the kids were little there were always kids playing in the streets and parent’s sitting together, talking, and watching the kids (more talking than watching). We have had family dinners out, we have had couple’s nights out, we have had family pool parties, we have had adult wine parties, we have even gone on several vacations where some number of us all rented houses together up near Lake Tahoe (more on that another day). We have gone to the Sacramento King’s games, we have coached sports together, our kids played sports together (I think one year about 11 or 12 of the kids were all on the same swim team). So we have done bonding activities and done them consistently and done them for many years.
We have done little things. This is the first year that we have not all “boo’d” the other houses at Halloween. The act of out-boo’ing your neighbor became legendary as we would all try to cultivate the best selection of candy, toys and decorations to leave on another’s door step each Halloween. Heck, then there is trick-or-treating itself. I think the parent’s enjoy it more than the kids. As the kids run off to the next house the parent’s enjoy a leisurely stroll around the hood, sipping a beer or warm glass of cider, and chatting about life.
What have we not done? We live in a HOA controlled hood and you have to get things signed off on by your neighbors. For example, exterior paint color, exterior house modifications, etc…. Whenever one of my neighbors has come to my door, with an HOA form, I sign FIRST and then ask what changes they are making. I want to make it clear I support them whatever they want to do. Yes, I trust them but don’t be a thorn in your neighbor’s side or even give an impression that you might be a thorn in their side!
Also, don’t be annoying, don’t be loud (unless you invited all of them to the party too), and basically don’t cause problems. Nobody likes a neighbor who has bad friends that come over. Nobody likes a neighbor whose kid has a party, the punks leave trash everywhere, and they don’t clean it up.
Go out of your way to set that great first impression, go out of your way to be nice, be a good human, be a good parent, be a good child, and that will help you to be a good neighbor!
Until next time….