I Miss the Old Days on the East Side, When Neighbors Were Neighborly

An article I read today made me both sad and happy at the same time. An elderly woman sent a hand-written note to a neighbor (whose name was left blank because she didn't know his name), asking him to be her friend because she had none. Her family all lived far away and her friends had all passed on before her. She had no one to visit with, no one who came and checked on her, no one to interact with. (Fortunately for her, the neighbor responded and happily a new friendship was formed.)

My first thought was that this is a sad commentary on today's insular society. My second thought was that it was not like that when I was growing up. Everyone knew their neighbors, at least on the streets I grew up on. I suspect that was true all across the country, not just on the East Side. But I can only speak to the three neighborhoods I lived in as a child: Bush near Frank, Earl and Orange, and Lane Place.

We lived on Bush until I was in second grade. My best friend Linda lived next door, my babysitter Debbie was the daughter of the woman who lived upstairs from us in our duplex, and my mother had no problem letting me walk to school because people knew everyone else on the few blocks I needed to walk. Besides that, except for those who went to the private church schools, the other kids on my street went to Mounds Park, too, so there was a whole crowd walking up to meet the crossing guards on Earl Street.

This was back in the late 50s/early 60s, before there was school choice or kids being bussed elsewhere due to the drive to counteract school racial imbalances. Everyone went to the school in their neighborhood, except for some who attended the Catholic or Lutheran schools. So your classmates were your neighbors, and they were your friends as well. Birthdays called for inviting all the kids in the neighborhood over for cake and Kool-Aid and games in the backyard. Presents were optional, and fun was in abundance.

Dads chatted as they mowed their lawns on the weekends. (Most used rotary mowers so there wasn't the drone of the motors to talk over.) And they borrowed power tools from one another when they needed to fix something. Or they helped one another. When my dad came home from a fishing trip with more fish than he thought we would eat, he knew which family in the neighborhood could use a little little more food that week and who liked fish.

Moms talked over the fence as they hung their laundry up to dry on the clothes lines that were in almost every backyard. They brought over casseroles and pies when someone was sick or had a new baby. And they didn't give much thought to their kids who were speeding up and down the front sidewalks on their bikes and trikes, because the other parents in the neighborhood were probably looking out their windows from time to time. You could draw hop scotch chalk marks halfway down the block without worrying that someone would get mad that you wrote on their sidewalk. No one took issue with kids running through their yard during a game of hide and seek, and on rainy days parents had a good idea which garage to find their kids playing Monopoly in. And if you didn't head home when the street lights came on, somebody would holler out their front door at you to remind you.

Nobody called the police when some of the kids in the neighborhood got out of control. No; they called their parents, which was worse. I remember more than one day coming in after school to my mom's angry face because one of the moms had called her to report what I was up to when I was supposed to be walking home and instead stopped to pick a flower from someone else's yard. (Not that neighbor who called, but another one who knew the lady was obsessive about her flower beds and wouldn't appreciate it. My mom didn't either, but she sure appreciated the call. I know she returned the favor more than once, because that woman's son out riding his bike often knocked the little kids down when they were playing on the sidewalk. His mom heard about it, and he would have to come out and apologize.)

When we lived on Earl and Orange, my dad made sure we shoveled the sidewalk of the elderly woman who lived a few houses down. And the first guy on the block who bought a snow blower did the front sidewalk on the entire block whenever it would snow. Mama and Papa Carbone lived next door (their sons were the ones who opened the Italian deli that used to be down on Missisippi and the pizza place on 7th Street that later became a chain). They didn't speak much English, but they sure loved the kids in the neighborhood. Papa liked to pass out the little tiny Italian candies he had in a fancy glass dish in the living room, and Mama always had a pot of tomato sauce on the stove. "Manga, manga" - we learned what that meant quickly! She would share the vegetables from her garden along the retaining wall that adjoined our yard. I had my first taste of zucchini in that house. My first real Italian pizza, too.

Kids could move en masse around the neighborhood on Halloween without any parents, or maybe one or two would shepherd the entire group. Gangs of kids went from door to door, and nobody worried about the homemade treats like popcorn balls and caramel apples. When we got home we could tell our parents exactly who passed out what. You didn't have to go any further than just up and down your street (or maybe make the circle the entire block if you had the energy) because everyone had their lights on and treats were to be had at every house. And no matter how well you had made your costume, you could be sure people knew who you were and would compliment you on your creativity.

If you happened to come home from school before your mom got back from running errands, you just went to a neighbor's house. It didn't have to be arranged in advance; it was just expected. And chances are your neighbor knew where your mom had gone. Most people had a spare key to at least one neighbor's house, or at least you knew where your neighbors hid theirs. Everybody I knew had a list of phone numbers posted next to their phone with all the homes on the block listed.

We didn't need an organized neighborhood watch group, because people automatically did that. It was just how we life was lived. Everybody watched out for everyone else. Oh, I know some of it was because a few were nosy, but mostly it was because people knew their neighbors and were concerned about them. You didn't worry about your house when you went on vacation, because your neighbors all knew you were gone and would keep an eye on it. They would come over and collect your mail and drop it off as soon as you got back. Today we don't want anyone to know we're gone, so we put our lights on timers or have someone come and house sit.

My son recently told me how hard it was for he and his partner to have a date night because they don't know anyone who can babysit their kids. I asked him about his neighbors, and except for the family who lives next door, they really don't know anyone who lives in their development. He said there were a number of houses with older kids but he didn't know them. How sad, I thought. When I was growing up, I had more babysitting jobs than I could handle, and they were all from the families on our block or across the street.

I moved away from Lane Place in the summer of 1983, and it astounds me how I can close my eyes and picture the houses. Many of the names I've long forgotten but I have managed to reconnect with a few kids from the old neighborhood and it's jogged my memory. The Haneys lived on the corner at Jessamine. Kathy went to school with me, and her little sister Mary was my younger sister's age. Her mom and my mom were good friends. The house right next to us was occupied by an older retired couple, the Jenkinses. They stick out in my mind because they left their Christmas lights up all year round and turned them on for every holiday. The Prokoshes lived on the other side of us. They were a younger couple, and I remember when they moved in. When they built their garage, my dad helped.

Further down the street were the Olsons. They had three little boys, and I was their regular babysitter. Next to them lived Ed Nyborg, the choir director at our church. He was divorced, and his first wife and kids lived in Connecticut. When they were younger they would come and visit in the summer. Todd was my age, and his sister and I got to be good friends. (Sorry kiddo, but I can't recall your name!) Eventually they came to live with their dad, and I often spent the night at their house on the weekends. Ed taught voice, and he gave my younger sister lessons without charge.

Next to Ed and Martha were the Schramms. They were the female counterpart to the Olsons - they had three daughters, all about the same age and my sisters and me. Brenda was my best friend in those days. I hung out a lot at their house, and Mrs. Schramm taught me how to put on nail polish. Sometimes our families would have backyard cookouts together.

I could go on and on, recounting old familiar names and anecdotes. One of my favorite neighborly stories involves Mr. Manos, who lived across the alley from us. When I broke my tennis racket before a high school tournament and my folks were out of town, Mr. Manos loaned me the money to buy a new one. It astounds me that I had the nerve to ask, but it's even more astounding that he gave me the money without a second thought.

Oh, and I had my first taste of Greek food from Mr. Manos when he shared the leftovers from an open house they had. Or maybe it was from his daughter's rehearsal dinner. At any rate, I can thank him for what has become a lifelong love of that cuisine. I think of him often when I bite into a gyro.

Neighbors would call you to let you know your garage door was open or your burn barrel was still smoking. I remember more than once my dad would send me next door to see if they had any charcoal when he was getting the grill going and saw he didn't have enough. Borrowing a cup of sugar when you were baking meant you often returned that sugar along with some of the cookies you made.

As I grew up, I still experienced a bit of this neighborliness. When my husband and I moved to Middletown, Ohio, I was pregnant. The day after we came home from the hospital, the woman across the street (whom we had not yet met) came over with her 12-year-old daughter and a baby present. Shirley wanted us to meet her daughter and know that she had babysitter training. Oh, and they noticed that we were having trouble keeping up on the lawn mowing, and Michelle would do it. No pay, but she should appreciate a chance to come in and play with the baby afterward.

The elderly couple next door - the Wilsons - became our dear friends. We put in a produce garden right after we moved in, and they came over to chat as we worked. They asked how much potatoes we were putting in. We said we hadn't gotten any to plant. When I came home from work the next day, they were just finishing up planting two rows of potatoes in our garden. And occasionally I would find Mr. Wilson weeding when I came home from work. Who does that anymore???? When Mr. Wilson was cleaning out his closet, he gave my husband a couple of times that he thought would go with the suit he sometimes saw him in. They gave us a going away present when we moved, and there were hugs and tears all the way around.

We moved our young family back to the East Side and initially rented a house on Ivy near Prosperity. Next door was a men's group home, and several of them came out to introduce themselves when we moved in. Our houses shared a driveway, and whenever it would snow, several of the residents would be out there shoveling, our side included, and often our steps and sidewalk as well. They were enchanted with our two-year-old daughter and sometimes one of them would come and knock on the door and ask if she could come out and play ball with them. She loved it - she had an entire adult fan club!

When they got a guinea pig, she was one of the first to find out about it. Their resident care giver came over with one of the guys to tell us about the guinea pig and invite Jess to come and see it. She was gone quite awhile, and she was still squealing about it when her dad got home. There weren't any other children in the neighborhood, but at this house she had a whole group of playmates. They may not have been age appropriate, but they sure seemed to enjoy the same things. Was I concerned? Not a bit - these were my neighbors!

One of the residents - Pete - was basically nonverbal. The entire time we lived there (more than 2 years), he never said a word. He often stood in the driveway and stared at our house for long periods of time, and then he would go in the house. The day we were packing the moving van, Pete came outside and stood beside the truck, crying. He reached out his hand to my husband to shake it and uttered one word, "Sad." So were we. Such wonderful neighbors we were leaving behind.

But we found a terrific neighborhood around our new house - also on Ivy, this time close to Payne Avenue. It was a mix of young families and retired couples. Next door was a family with a boy and a girl, the Arkseys. We became good friends immediately and our kids played together. We were sad to see them move a couple years later, and occasionally they would invite us over to their new house.

They were replaced by a couple with a boy our son's age. We met before they even moved in. The Bernals were fantastic neighbors, and Danny and Andy played together often. Heidi would bring me real vanilla when they would go visit her husband's parents in Mexico. One Sunday we were having guests over and our baby had managed to get the front door open as she was cruising about in her walker. She tumbled down the cement stairs and landed head first on the sidewalk. I ran toward the sound of the crash, just in time to see the paramedics pull up. Heidi had seen the whole thing out her living room window and had immediately called 911. She was waiting beside Abbi and held me back to let the EMTs do their job. (The kid was fine, mom was a wreck, but Heidi convinced me I was not a terrible mom because my kid had an accident.) And when we decided to move to Duluth, the Bernals let us stash the things that wouldn't fit in the moving truck at their house until my husband could come back and get them later.

I was delighted to find that the family with three adolescent daughters across the street had a connection to us. The mom - Mary - went to Farnsworth with me and she remembered me. Their girls delightedly played with our small children almost every day, often taking them over to their house. Middle daughter Laura became our regular babysitter. I think my kids some of my kids have kept in touch with her on Facebook.

Further down the street was another young family we also formed a close bond with. Art and Donna Ellingson also had kids about the same age as ours. We did things together as families, and our children were best friends. We fed each other's kids snacks without having to call one another for permission.

I recall just after our youngest child was born I was napping with the baby and had put our four-year-old son down to nap as well. After I bit I got a phone call from her to tell me Andy was at her house. Someone on Payne Avenue found him wandering into the neighborhood grocery store (we walked there often together) alone, dressed in his winter boots and jacket but no pants. The owner had seen him at the Ellingsons' house, which was right behind the store, and she assumed he lived there. Donna knew I must have been napping and she was aware that Andy had a tendency to escape. So she brought him in, put him in a pair of her son Matthew's pants and called me to tell me he was okay and she would keep him for a couple of hours so I could rest.

We were sad when the Ellingsons moved to southern Minnesota, but we kept in touch, and our kids even went to stay with them on their small farm one weekend. Our children have remained Facebook friends, even though that was more than 25 years ago.

Times have changed. Oh, I know there are pockets all around the country where people are making an effort to get to know their neighbors. But you wouldn't need a National Night Out if more people already did. Parents could let their kids play in their own yards without being afraid someone would call Child Protection. We have neighbors on both sides of us now that we have gotten to know. The couple on the one side often join us for dinner, and on the other side is a young family my husband first met as a customer. Later they moved in next door, and he doesn't think twice to ask if he needs a hand moving something. Rides to the airport and feeding the cat while they're away are a given. I do know the names of a few other neighbors but not much more. I think it's time to go introduce myself and see if I can't make a small change for the better.

Mr. Rogers had it right: "Won't you be my neighbor?"