What makes a good neighbor? – Asks the daily writing prompt again. I wrote a piece last year called Neighbor that covers it pretty well.
So, I’ll talk about a few other observations. We have a longtime neighbor down the street moving away later this year. Our children all grew up together. He more than helped me build my deck. We used to go to dinner or cookouts here and there.
They are the second longtime neighbor that our families had a long connection with that moved this year. Change is the only constant in life. When we first moved here, there was nothing but woods behind us for decades. Then another home was added to the court behind us. While we have a wooded view in the summer, but as the trees shed the corner of a home appears to the right.
We have two properties that are in danger of collapse. At the same time, homes near a million $. One nice property was purchased about 2 years ago and hasn’t been lived in since. Very strange, seeing someone in and out every month or two, for a few hours, but otherwise unoccupied.
I hear we have a State Policeman in the neighborhood, but we haven’t met. Large family but almost never seen. We have a couple of elderly OGs still. But transition will be coming to those homes also. There are several of us who are entering our senior years and a mix of young newcomers, most of which I don’t know well yet.
I get along well with the longtime neighbors to one side and across the street. The neighbor on the other side is a struggle at best. They still own the home but moved elsewhere I believe and I’m guessing now they have other family living there. I believe they also rent rooms out. They don’t take care of the property and in the past built on my property to where I had to pay for a survey and get their shed, animal pen and garden off my land. They almost burnt their place down twice with open burns and got sited by the county.
A longtime neighbor (who was also my dentist) just retired so I might look him up more. I’ll probably make more of an effort to get to know my new neighbors.
One of them down the street I think I might meet before some others. They are car enthusiasts. I’m also a car enthusiast, but I don’t tear up and down my street. I’ve done some eyeballing when they came rolling down a few times and that seems to have solved it for now with the exception when they had a meet at their house and they all rolled out for a cruise and more than a few got squirrely on the way out.
It’s an interesting and ever-changing neighborhood. At one time we were the young childless couple in the hood. Then a family and now one of the neighborhood OGs.
