November 29, 2004

Neighborliness

I learned something this weekend.

On Saturday, I was taking a desk apart and delivering the parts out to the trash for the garbagemen to pick up on Monday. In the process, I noticed that our neighbor across Ridge (the red brick house with the large hickory tree in front) was raking his yard and bagging it up. The first time I offered to help him rake and bag, he told me that he had it but thanks anyway. The second time, he took me up on the offer. I grabbed my rake and snow shovel (Snow shovels are great for picking up the rakings) and went to town. We worked hard for a couple of hours, bagging and shovelling. It was a blast. As we talked, he told me how much he appreciated this. I asked him if this wasn't the norm and he said that it wasn't. Most people wouldn't do that. I really didn't realize that.

I think more people need to crawl out of their comfort zone and do more for each other. I am sorry that, as a society, we have crawled into mini cocoons and fester there. There is a lot of hurt today and it can (often) be taken care of by personal interaction.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If more people reach out to others beyond their "comfort zone", perhaps everyone's "comfort zone" will increase in size so that they all overlap. One observation is that as people get more surrounded by impersonal "technology", they tend to "cocoon" at home and carry that feeling out past the doorstep. "Pay It Forward" was a great film with a similiar message.
Friendship is a precious thing. As JF Murphy wrote in "The Last Illusion"- "Friendship is the only beast that doesn't bite until it's dead".