There Goes the Neighborhood

One of my favorite childhood memories is of a boisterous, after-supper game of "Kick the Can" with the neighborhood kids. The rules have been forgotten but not the sweet smells and cricket sounds of a summer night. Nor the fleet-footed freedom of running in the dark. Nor the sound of my mother's laughter as she and my father visited on the front steps with the folks next door. Children and adults, nurtured by companionship, shared the reassuring pleasure of being neighbors.
     Today the old concept of a neighborhood as a support system has nearly disappeared. If one is willing to risk the urban dangers of an after-dark walk around the block, one invariably sees the flickering eye of the TV staring back at families hypnotized into immobility. Once part of a gregarious community, the American family has  become an assemblage of quasi-alienated beings living in climate-controlled isolation.
     During his lifetime my father tended to blame the ills of the world on overpopulation, and maybe he was right. Perhaps it's the threat of too many others trespassing upon our personal space that makes us overprotective of it. 
     Consider, for example, the varieties of solitaire available for download on computers, iPhones, and iPads--Fan, Pyramid, Baker's Dozen, Klondike, Spider, Montecarlo--games popular for their ability to be played solo. And although Facebook and Twitter purport to be "social networks," they are in fact anti-social in the sense that they encourage members to exchange thoughts from a safe, electronic distance instead of seeking out friends to engage in lively, face-to-face conversation.
     Unfortunately, on the altar of electronic communication we are sacrificing the art of human sharing. Neighborliness, it seems, is a luxury we can no longer afford.

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