The yard is nicely maintained: the lawn is mowed, the shrubs roundly trimmed. On the porch steps,

[struggle4progress]

there are several fragile cast porcelain sculptures. It's all clean and in good order

The doorbell is behind several layers of spiderweb. Beyond the webbing, white fuzz of cobweb criss-crosses the button itself. It's the real stuff, not Halloween decoration

I've knocked several hundred doors in the last ten days, and I don't know how many over the years -- must be thousands. This seems new: I really don't remember ever seeing a doorbell covered with spiderwebs before

Maybe that bell doesn't get much use. Maybe their visitors come to the side door

I push my hand through the silk strands and touch the button. Inside, there's melodic chiming

Nobody comes to the door, so I finally slide my lit under the mat. There's no car in the drive, but I expect they probably have one. I guess they're just out and about

The doorbell sticks in my mind later. It's not my neighborhood. But how hard is it to find an excuse to ring the neighbors' doorbells now and again, to drop off a package of Christmas cookies or such? I'm trying to remember when I last did that

[A HERETIC I AM]

1. I have to say, Struggle4progress....

Your posts are charmingly written and have been a pleasure to read these last few weeks.

You have a talent for story telling, in case you weren't aware.

You are obviously doing good work, and legwork at that.

Cheers, and stay safe.

[struggle4progress]

28. Thanks! I'm glad you've enjoyed them!

[glowing]

2. Maybe they are on vacation? The lawn maintenance is probably done by service.

[FirstLight]

3. we don;t know our neighbors anymore

the couple across the street got foreclosed on and the new folks aren't as nice or easy to talk to... very closed off. the two houses on the left are full of skateboarder/young guiys who have loud parties about once a month...
the lady to my right is really sweet, but has become less visible since she was diagnosed with kidney cancer, i keep saying i have to bring her muffins or something
the kids on the corner are a young sweet couple and they let my kids play with their dog

but i remember the days when i used to know everyone on our street, and it was a long winding road in the oakland hills...but somehow my parents knew everyone and we kids ran in a pack, the little old lady in the house on the corner would bake cookies for us and we'd come by and help her with yardwork for some snax & milk...

so much fear permeates our consciousness now... the 'you donlt know if they are a predator' mentality has made us less community oriented. IMHO it is this alone which will be our ultimate undoing. humans survived the ice ages and plagues because we are social creatures.

[Papagoose]

6. sounds like my subdivision

The only people who speak to one another are those that go to church together. Since my family doesn't go to church, nobody (and I mean nobody) in our subdivision speaks a single word to us.

[KittyWampus]

13. Oh, I have a story. Worked as a gardener down by the beach taking care of several houses in a row.

During one summer, two houses I took care of were rented out for August. I was in the driveway weeding when one father and son from one house walked down their drive and the father started talking to the man who was standing outside of the house I was currently working at.

After they were done talking and the one man walked back into the house the son turned to his father and asked "why were you talking to that man, Dad" and the father said "cause he's our neighbor".

It was really weird. When I later asked one of those families if they wanted some tomatoes they asked "what do you mean"? I had to explain I had extra tomatoes and did they want some for free.

City folk. Oy.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. It doesn't happen like that anymore.

[OregonBlue]

5. That's true and it's because we no longer make it happen. Sad.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Entrepeneurs are killing every honest human interaction in a community.

Everything is calculated either to produce good will, or to procure a donation.

Some people are self-interested for selfish reasons, other people are self-interested as a survival mechanism to the former.

[OregonBlue]

14. Perhaps but I can't remember when was the last time I visited an elderly neighbor that was not

already a good friend. I used to do that. I also used to welcome new people to my neighborhood but the latest two to move in gave off a distincly "Republican" vibe and I didn't bother. I'm guilty and I suspect many more of us are too.

[The Backlash Cometh]

25. I don't count myself in that group.

I gave it my best shot, but I learned that no good turn goes unpunished.

[KittyWampus]

15. Dear BC, I walk every day around the neighborhood to lose weight. I smile and wave to people >>>

one lady is Margaret. She let me pick her apples which is great cause our apple tree was a flop this year.

I think people have forgotten to take the time to LOOK for human interaction. Or to build community.

I started a woman's art group years back. We did well for a while until it imploded due to politics (small groups can be crazy that way).

[The Backlash Cometh]

26. I think it's regional.

I went on a trip to Tallahassee with my husband not too long ago and my husband had to prep me. "Here people say hello to you, so be prepared. It's very friendly."

It's regional. Where I live, it's just not like that.

In the early years I had people following me or questioning me because they were sure I was some migrant worker who was stealing someone's dog.

Let's see, the first time I was walking around a retention pond and when the police cruiser came into the parking lot, the family kept walking toward me calling out their dog's name. Fortunately we were on the far side of the pond because my dog would have bolted towards them to say hello as she was apt to do back then. She does it to everyone, whether you called her or not. When the family got close enough they realized it wasn't there dog and waved the cruiser away.

The second time some man saw her in the back seat of my car at the 7-11 and acted friendly, asking all kinds of questions. Then the conversation changed to how a friend of his lost a dog just like my dog and that dog had speckles on her tongue. Without asking, he proceeded to open my dog's mouth. I saw his face change from friendly, to that accusatory look that minorities are familiar with. There were no speckles on my dog's tongue.

The third time I was followed from the street as some guy watched to see where I lived. It was a young couple, the wife was still in the car on the main road. I can only imagine they called it into the police and the police said, "Please leave that woman alone!"

The fourth time I was walking along the street along a fairway and noticed a middle-age white male walking in my direction. This was odd because at that time, (Before the Russert died) you wouldn't see them out during working hours, unless they were playing golf. Then I looked behind me and I saw another white male walking toward me. Now I knew something was up. I proceeded to get off the sidewalk and one of them came toward me, using a friendly tone, saying what a beautiful dog I had. I held my ground and responded kindly. He asked if it was a certain pedigree, I said no, it was a mix. Then he took out a cellphone and asked if he could take a picture and that's when I slammed down. "Why would you want to take a picture?" I looked at him with anger in my face and he, at least, had the decency to recognize he had stepped over the line.

I watched and noticed how the two men met up with their golf partners later down the way.

And that's just the experiences I had with the dog. So, you see, my community isn't very friendly.

[needledriver]

7. Where I live it is spider season.

It would only take a day or two to cover the front door bell with webs.

[Mugu]

9. Same here.

A couple of days and the whole outside of the house is covered with webs, and now leaves are falling and sticking to the webs. I take a broom out and sweep them off, but within days they're back.

[NutmegYankee]

16. I had a freaky encounter the other day with one.

I walked through a low lying web on the way to my car, but just cleared the lines off and figured I had just caught a spare web and got in and drove off. When I got to a four way stop the garden spider started walking onto my forehead, which prompted me to completely panic (thankfully stopped) and frantically brush at my hair to get it off. The spider goes flying onto the windshield while the impatient driver behind me honks away. I drove to work and scooped the spider out with a sheet of paper and tossed him into the trees behind the parking lot.

I didn't need much coffee at work that morning...

[struggle4progress]

20. Spider season here is midsummer. We've already had some frosty nights.

I'll get big webs all over my eaves in July and need to be careful then walking between trees if I don't want a face full of silk and some eight-legged dame crawling on me, but the exoskeleton gang is not at its peak now

[TorchTheWitch]

10. Never a good idea to open the door to a stranger

I never do. In fact, I don't even want said stranger to know that I'm in the house. Frankly, I find it rude to arrive unannounced at someone's house whether you know them or not. If you want to visit someone, call first. Just showing up is an interruption, and you have no idea what it is you're interrupting, and not everyone feels comfortable answering the door even to someone they know with bed head or a facial mud mask or in their jammies or whatever lounge around the house type clothing.

I freakin' hate it when someone shows up at my door unannounced, and I don't care if I know them, I'm not answering.

[struggle4progress]

22. Some people feel that way. I can often tell if somebody's home but

not answering the door. I ring once. If they don't want to come to the door, I don't pester the doorbell

My monologue is very short and sweet. If someone answers the door and it's obviously a bad time, I apologize and move on

But most of the people I encounter have been very positive

[marions ghost]

27. Americans are so uncomfortable

when anybody approaches their house. So in order not to make anyone uncomfortable I try to arrange things a day in advance. But what is sad to me is that you have to do this with people you know well. It used to be that people could drop around on short notice, or just chat in the yard. But nobody has time for that anymore. I miss this type of impromptu visiting, and I wouldn't even care if close friends gave me much notice. If I were home, I would be happy to see them. And I don't care what the house looks like. A few dirty dishes or whatever doesn't matter.

I have lived in other countries, and America is the only country I've been in where close friends make formal appointments to see each other (beyond college age).

[TorchTheWitch]

29. well, that's you

and no one is assuming a formal appointment... just a courtesy call. I treasure my privacy and greatly dislike interruption of it particularly when I'm sick or sleeping or in the bathroom or busy doing something or just want to be left alone. I do plenty of backyard over the fense visiting especially since our yards here are tiny though there are certainly times when I don't want to engage in chitchat like if I'm busy playing with the dog or wanting to relax in my little wading pool. I think it's just common curtesy to call first instead of just showing up at someone's door like it's common curtesy to not call late at night (for those that keep a day awake/night asleep schedule, unlike me) or calling during the average dinner time. I believe a person's privacy should be respected, and when someone is at home they're in a private environment, and however well you may know them doesn't remove that respect of their privacy.

I also don't think there's anything strange or unsociable about not wanting to be interupted unannounced when at home nor is is peculiar to Americans. I have two brothers who lived in Europe and still travel extensively throughout and have had the direct opposite experience in that they found that dropping by someone's house was considered rude behavior. When they lived in Germany, people had gates at the sidewalk with bells because it was also considered rude to go directly up to the house to announce your arrival even though you were expected.

I also don't appreciate people leaving literature or other flyers tucked into or taped to my door especially when they open the storm door to tuck something there and don't close it all the way. I have a promenantly displayed mailbox for such things, and don't appreciate having to chase down unsecured flyers or literature that I don't want in the first place across the yard, slipping on them going in or out, or having to pick tape off the door and clean off the glue residue nor do I appreciate my storm door not being closed so it flaps in the wind and bleeds cold air into my house forcing up the heating bill. And frankly, I don't want strangers on my property at all leaving literature or flyers I don't even want in the first place... mail it like the other junk I get in the mail every day.

[Kalyke]

11. Maybe it's been foreclosed upon and no one lives there.

The bank's taking care of the lawn and sculptures, but there's been no reason for anyone to ring the bell.

:shrug:

Maybe?

[Hekate]

18. The gardens & lawns at foreclosed houses I've gone to look at were neglected to the point of death

The Bank makes a careless landlord.

Within our county we have a couple of different biosystems. By the coast it's dry, but mild climate and coastal fog can keep a lot of plants going even when not watered. Over the mountain it's a different story -- very dry and hot. I wanted to see a couple of houses I'd researched online. By the inland ones the grass crunched beneath my feet. A grapefruit tree was dead, its fruit dessicated. One that I saw by the coast looked shabby and overgrown, but most everything was alive.

What's so odd about this is that these houses are high-end, and yet the bank seems to have little interest in protecting its putative investment even as it keeps the prices high (i.e. too high for me).

Hekate

[struggle4progress]

19. I've seen enough empty houses. They often have for rent or for sale signs.

If people leave anything when moving out, they don't leave nice decorations neatly arranged on the porch: they might leave some trash.I'm pretty sure these folk were just out for a while

[KittyWampus]

12. jeez, you may have just awoken a sleeping ghost! In which case I say >

VOTE DEMOCRATIC IN NOVEMBER!

[struggle4progress]

23. "When ah die, bay-ree me in Nuth Cayolina so ah kin keep on votin"

It's a fun slogan -- but I don't think much of that really happens around here

[littlewolf]

17. Normally

I don't use the door bell .... I just knock .....

[DemoTex]

21. I clicked on your profile, expecting the South: the South it is!

Evocative of Eudora Welty, Faulkner, and O'Connor - subtle, though - like the pinion and juniper bouquet in a fine Pacific Northwest blended red wine that I recently tasted.

[struggle4progress]

24. Yep, though I is a damn yankee born and bred, I has mostly lived down here in Dixie