Being Neighborly!
The lost art of being neighborly...It doesn't matter if you dress 50's, your whole house is retro-fitted down to the floor and wallpaper, or that all your meals are cooked from scratch using only Vintage cookbooks. The real greatness of yesteryear was who we were back then.
I had a crazy experience yesterday where a self proclaimed expert and admin for a Vintage site accused me of something I wasn't guilty of...and even after apologizing for the misunderstanding continued to attack and actually was taking great pleasure in behaving this way. (I will spare you the details) I was shocked but I found that I started to get angry and wanted to lash out and continue the argument. Nobody wants to be misunderstood and treated this way. I had to calm myself down, declare to myself that this stranger is insignificant in my life and has shown her true colors AND it gave me something to think about because I don't want to EVER behave like her. So...the old Make Lemonade out of Lemons is taking place. I started to ask questions, Like "How did we, as Americans, Get like this?" Always ready for a fight...always suspicious of others intentions etc. And for some reason it made me think of Neighbors in my childhood.
We knew everyone in both neighborhoods that I lived in. Not just the people that were my parents age with kids our age, but the older folks also. They had conversations over fences, waved when they were both outside and we knew everyone as Mr. or Mrs., never on a first name basis with an adult. If they were a close family friend they became our Fake Aunts and Uncles and called by that title, even though there was no family tree that we all stemmed from. We did borrow cups of sugar from the neighbors and my parents DID have a cocktail party or two with the neighbors. When we got our first Colored TV, (I think I mentioned this in a previous post) We were the first one in our neighborhood to get one and my Dad invited all these kids and their parents over to watch the Wizard of Oz!! My living room was filled and I wish I could say that as a kid that I felt neighborly at the time but in reality I was not happy about so many crowding around our TV. I do not remember cross words ever being spoken by neighbors to us, let alone strangers. There was a common courtesty and respect.
When we first moved into this rural "neighborhood" we were welcomed by the neighboring farmer coming and plowing up our garden. Another farmer's wife across the street telling us to come help ourselves to the Collards growing in their side yard. People waved to me as I drove past. Okay, so I thought it was a little weird. But in Reality...I was the one that was a little weird. I was busy...I was running my business and didn't have time for this sort of thing. Well, the Farmer doesn't plow anymore...the old woman across the street is gone along with her husband last year. but the old timers still wave. After yesterday I realized that I could DO all the external things in this experiment and miss the point of what I desired in doing this. I didn't missed all the "stuff" of Retro living, I missed the way people were at the time. That is what started this experiment...the crazy that I was seeing in this country was what spurred it. So, Thank you Crazy Lady on Facebook!!! Thank you that you acted 2017 in a coiffed hairdo, because you made me think, you made me realize that it isn't about me not using the microwave or watching lousy TV shows or not Tweeting or Facebooking...it is about going back to a simpler time when people tried to be good to each other. So, I am going to start waving to cars going by. I am going to start treating people like I want to be treated and I am going to go make my Farmer Neighbor a Blueberry Coffee Cake from the Blueberries I froze from my garden last year with just a note of thanks for being such a good neighbor. I want to BE what I want to SEE in others...now THAT will be a great take away from this experiment. Y'all have a great Neighborly Day!
I had a crazy experience yesterday where a self proclaimed expert and admin for a Vintage site accused me of something I wasn't guilty of...and even after apologizing for the misunderstanding continued to attack and actually was taking great pleasure in behaving this way. (I will spare you the details) I was shocked but I found that I started to get angry and wanted to lash out and continue the argument. Nobody wants to be misunderstood and treated this way. I had to calm myself down, declare to myself that this stranger is insignificant in my life and has shown her true colors AND it gave me something to think about because I don't want to EVER behave like her. So...the old Make Lemonade out of Lemons is taking place. I started to ask questions, Like "How did we, as Americans, Get like this?" Always ready for a fight...always suspicious of others intentions etc. And for some reason it made me think of Neighbors in my childhood.
We knew everyone in both neighborhoods that I lived in. Not just the people that were my parents age with kids our age, but the older folks also. They had conversations over fences, waved when they were both outside and we knew everyone as Mr. or Mrs., never on a first name basis with an adult. If they were a close family friend they became our Fake Aunts and Uncles and called by that title, even though there was no family tree that we all stemmed from. We did borrow cups of sugar from the neighbors and my parents DID have a cocktail party or two with the neighbors. When we got our first Colored TV, (I think I mentioned this in a previous post) We were the first one in our neighborhood to get one and my Dad invited all these kids and their parents over to watch the Wizard of Oz!! My living room was filled and I wish I could say that as a kid that I felt neighborly at the time but in reality I was not happy about so many crowding around our TV. I do not remember cross words ever being spoken by neighbors to us, let alone strangers. There was a common courtesty and respect.
When we first moved into this rural "neighborhood" we were welcomed by the neighboring farmer coming and plowing up our garden. Another farmer's wife across the street telling us to come help ourselves to the Collards growing in their side yard. People waved to me as I drove past. Okay, so I thought it was a little weird. But in Reality...I was the one that was a little weird. I was busy...I was running my business and didn't have time for this sort of thing. Well, the Farmer doesn't plow anymore...the old woman across the street is gone along with her husband last year. but the old timers still wave. After yesterday I realized that I could DO all the external things in this experiment and miss the point of what I desired in doing this. I didn't missed all the "stuff" of Retro living, I missed the way people were at the time. That is what started this experiment...the crazy that I was seeing in this country was what spurred it. So, Thank you Crazy Lady on Facebook!!! Thank you that you acted 2017 in a coiffed hairdo, because you made me think, you made me realize that it isn't about me not using the microwave or watching lousy TV shows or not Tweeting or Facebooking...it is about going back to a simpler time when people tried to be good to each other. So, I am going to start waving to cars going by. I am going to start treating people like I want to be treated and I am going to go make my Farmer Neighbor a Blueberry Coffee Cake from the Blueberries I froze from my garden last year with just a note of thanks for being such a good neighbor. I want to BE what I want to SEE in others...now THAT will be a great take away from this experiment. Y'all have a great Neighborly Day!
You are so right it is the way life was back then, you could trust people and there was no road rage or other nasty 2017 happenings, I grew up in the 50s and am trying to live as much as I can like it was back then, thanks for a great blog
ReplyDeleteThanks for your response! There are things I like about the 21st century (conveniences) but the way we are always angry is not one of them. I confess to being that way and this project is revealing that also.Wow! I had no idea what I was going to go through personally with this experiment!
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