In the good old days......

[walyfd]

Too much greed and "ME, ME ME!!!" in the world for those days to ever come back. I live in the same house I was brought to from the hospital. When I was a kid, we knew every neighbor. All the kids played together OUTSIDE. We helped paint each other's siding and put roofs on. If someone died, the street took up a collection and everyone sent food to the family.

Now, the neighbors on either side of me wouldn't know I was dead. One young couple moved in and we've never spoken to them outside "hello". The one on the other side is the white-trash daughter of the deceased couple who used to live there. Doesn't mow the lawn until the borough sends a letter. Hasn't paid taxes in 5 years. Had an unregistered truck towed off the street by the borough. I'm ready to move because of it. Who'd buy my house with a pig sty next door?

I guess I miss civility and mutual respect.

Drive an old car. People try to race or push you off the road.

[electra225]

When you have an old car and go to a car show, there will invariably be some clodhopper with a kid in a stroller than wants to walk between the cars. Not mine they don't. Or they will ride a bicycle in the show area. People just don't think about the other guy.

[TC Chris]

When I was a kid, we knew every neighbor. All the kids played together OUTSIDE. We helped paint each other's siding and put roofs on. If someone died, the street took up a collection and everyone sent food to the family.

Now, the neighbors on either side of me wouldn't know I was dead. One young couple moved in and we've never spoken to them outside "hello".

This part I agree with. I have tried to figure it out. My best guess is that we tend to have more friends outside the neighborhood now--we're a lot more mobile. In the old family movies we can see Mr. Phillips, who lived two doors over, helping my dad build the backyard "jungle gym" device that we kids played on. Next door, one neighbor flooded a backyard skating rink. The adults would have parties together.

Whenever somebody new moves in next door, I make it a point to go over and introduce myself and offer help if needed. At my house, one neighbor turned out to be a real jerk and the other (who lives out of town) always says hi and chats when here. At my little summer cottage, one family has lived next door forever. On the other side, two owners in the last 15 years or so, both friendly & helpful. The current one cuts my backyard grass with his rider if it looks like it needs it and helped me move my seawall rocks one day when I was trying to do a one-man job with a come-along and tow strap around the maple tree one day (among many other helpful gestures; let me use his angle grinder to cut a flue tile for my chimney cap project).

Not quite the same close relationship that my parents enjoyed with neighbors, but I do like to know that I can say "Hey Joe, can you give me a hand?"

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

The decline of neighborliness, civic engagement, and small town society was the subject of a book called "Bowling Alone" some years ago. forget the author's name, but highly recommended. Most of the civic organizations seem to be in terminal decline, along with neighborly closeness. A pity, but some vestiges do remain, despite too many distractions like social media and smart phones, imo the leading cause of anti-social cocooning these days.

I miss a lot of the warm and fuzzy aspects of those days, but not the diving under desks, lynchings, primitive medicine, rampant pollution. Like most things it was a mix and memory is selective. I try to enjoy every day, there aren't that many of them left. Focusing on family and friends seems to work best for me.

[William]

Where I live now in retirement, the little town I grew up in, I know all the neighbors and we are all friendly to each other and help each other out. The 83 old lady across the street and the couple that lives the next house east (he is handicapped) I help a lot. My reward is the social visiting, and, they feed me! The couple that live to the west are very friendly and we help each other also. We also do social things together along with a few others in the neighborhood.

My statement about "missing those days" is true, but I do not dwell on it. I take everyday in the "NOW" one step at a time. Those "missing those days" are just pleasant memories of days gone by, and sometimes when life in this generation sucks it's a place I like to go too.

Bill

[electra225]

All the family on my maternal grandfather's side lived within walking distance of each other. Each sibling had taken a "patch" of "the home place" and built a dwelling on it. Uncle Fort had his place the closest. He had his sawmill and moonshine still set up back on the "Monon 40" in the woods. He taught me all kinds of cool things I would have been better off not knowing. Like how to fire a still with white oak, so the "revenooers" wouldn't see or smell hickory burning. How to insulate a building with sawdust, making it not only warmer, but also a picnic for bugs like termites. How you could haul 40 gallons of white liquor under the back seat of a '37 Buick and not squat the rear end. How to clear out a saloon with a baseball bat and be the last man standing. But, in his defense, he was one of my heroes. He had three girls, so I was his "boy". He was 65 years my senior, but the foray into old age didn't slow him down. A huge man, 6 feet five inches, 350 pounds, built like a bear. He was an expert sawyer by trade. His thing was quarter-sawn lumber. White oak, red oak, hickory, cherry. Uncle Fort's dad apprenticed him to the Amish when he was 14 in an effort to tame him a bit. They taught him to be a sawyer. He was the only one of the brothers, of the family, really, who could sing. He could farrier, he could blacksmith, he could fix anything. He'd go to church on Sunday, but be after the moonshine before he got home from church. His wife was a diminuitive lady, about 125 pounds sopping wet, very religious, very straight-laced. She was shunned Amish and theirs was an arranged marriage that lasted almost 65 years. Characters like Uncle Fort don't exist today. He would have been up on child abuse charges and God knows what else were he alive today and conducted himself like he did then. Part of the disconnect our society has is due to the fact that too many kids nowadays don't have an Uncle Fort in their lives. He was beloved by his family and was as rabidly dedicated to them.

He could train an animal and never lay a glove on it. "No critter should ever be afraid" was his motto. He'd pound the waddin' out of a knothead he thought deserved it, but he would NEVER lay a hand on an animal, and would give you the beating of your life if he saw you do it. He trained grandma's old gray barn cat, Jinx, to heel like a dog. Old Jinx thought he WAS a dog. He trained horses and mules with apple chunks. "If you want an apple, you gotta do what I say". That's all he needed. IT was amazing to watch this bear of a man be so gentle with a critter. He walk by the hour eating apple chunks with a mule or horse following him like a puppy. Before long, he'd be on their back, bareback, riding like he was born there. He stand by the hour pounding plow shares, telling me how they had to be fashioned just so, so they would sing when the moldboards turned the earth. The bottoms of the shares needed to be convex so you would get a good square furrow. If they wore dish shaped, you had a ragged furrow, were a poor plowman, and needed him to redo your plow shares. He would work grandpa's team of Percheron mares just by talking to them. He never connected the reins, nor the sulky. He would stand in the field and talk to the horses as they worked. He'd be at the end of the field to raise the plow, but they did the rest without him at the reins.

[walyfd]

The family across the street from me would do anything for anyone. I call her Mrs Kravitz because she pops over any time unannounced. She'll snow blow or mow the entire street unasked. It's not all bad...

I used to work in county government. In an office. Everybody KNEW one another. We talked daily. We went out on Friday and to parties together. Christmas, every office had a party and we cooked and baked. We were like family...

Now I work for a company that is so cold... it was bad enough but, since covid and work from home, we're like cave people. There's zero personal contact. People DO NOT know how to act in public because they're never in public...

I feel bad for the kids but I also feel bad for the adults... we've gone back to the dark ages as far as personal interaction. Decorum? What's that? Whatever a tiktok idol says it is?