Hey, Neighbor!
By Patricia Racine
July 2025
I grew up in a great neighborhood; it was more like having a big family than neighbors. Not only were we kids in and out of each other’s houses, but our parents were besties, too. And to this day we still spend Christmas morning breakfast together. It was so nice to know that if my mother wasn’t near there were two other moms available to take care of us, not to mention the grandma up the top of the hill that always had those nasty Canada mints for us.
This particular blueprint of great neighborhoods, in my opinion, is actually pretty hard to recreate. I do my best to be a considerate neighbor but do not really have any social circle connections with the people living around me other than being friendly when I see them. Not that I wouldn’t help them if asked, and I hope they know that.
It’s unfortunate that we live in a world where we are so disconnected from each other in person even though we are constantly connected digitally. Thankfully, I’m in a nice quiet harmonious neighborhood; occasionally there is the random gunshot, no big deal for me because I’m happy to be surrounded by neighbors whom I know can protect me during an apocalypse.
But not everyone is that lucky. Too often I hear from friends that their neighbors call the police every time they have a simple campfire in their perfectly safe firepit, disputes about property lines, those that disregard the privacy and peace of their neighbors maliciously and the increased number of rental properties popping up. It is hard to have strong friendships under those conditions, never mind living cohesively with each other. It’s not like we have HOAs here where you have to keep your property to the collective’s standards. Just be aware of the fact that there are other people in the neighborhood besides yourself. It’s just really sad when someone thinks that they will have to sell their home and move just to avoid an inconsiderate or busybody neighbor.
We all want to have autonomy of our own personal property and to do or build whatever our little hearts desire on said property. But that really isn’t how the real world works. Between taxes, zoning, building codes and environmental regulations we really don’t completely own our piece of land. And furthermore, there are other people living around us and they have the same rights as everyone, a concept that some people find completely foreign.
The point I’m trying to make is that your neighbors can be your best friends, closest allies, and even family-like, and life is so much better when that is the case. There is nothing worse than a Hatfield and McCoy scenario going on in your neighborhood that could be avoided by simply being kind and considerate of each other. Over in my neck of the woods we have a credo … "What happens on Walnut Lane stays on Walnut Lane," and it seems to work for us.
