9811150269
DETROIT FREE PRESS
981115
Sunday, November 15, 1998
METRO FINAL
1G
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1998, Detroit Free Press
WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR NEIGHBORS?
Let me tell you about my neighbors.
On one side, in a tri-level house, are Morty and Josie, who have two kids.
Josie has big blond hair and wears frosted lipstick. Morty is the life of the
party, always laughing and smoking a cigar.
On the other side are Jay and Shirley and their three boys. The boys play
football at the side of the house. Whenever they get any spare change, they
put it in a cup in the kitchen so that one day they can buy a swimming pool.
A few doors down are the Baroogis, with their six kids, all black hair. They
have a small basketball court alongside their big blue house, and all the
neighborhood children gather there after dinner. Next to them are the Cippons,
with three boys -- one of them plays trumpet in the high school band -- and
next to them are the Montegnas, with four kids -- three redheads, if you can
believe it. Every night after dinner, even in cold weather, Mr. and Mrs.
Montegna walk the neighborhood, and if you have a new tree or a new mailbox
they'll take notice and say something like, "See you got a new mailbox."
I can walk you through my neighborhood, point at every house, tell you who
lives there and what their stories are, from the cul-de-sac at the bottom of
the hill -- the split-level belongs to the Maguns, Holocaust survivors -- to
the bend in the road, where the pink house shelters the first girl I ever
kissed, Merrill Pedinoff. Don't get excited; we were 3 years old at the time.
Yes, it's close-knit, my neighborhood. The only problem is I no longer live
there.
I haven't lived there in 24 years.
A nice place, but ...
In the neighborhood where I live now, I cannot tell you more than two
families' names. This was brought home to me last week, after our electrical
power was blown out by a windstorm. When I called the electric company, the
person asked me for my address. And then, to pinpoint if the trouble had been
previously reported, the person asked for my neighbors' addresses.
"Their ...addresses?" I said.
"They're on the same street, right?"
"But I don't know the house numbers."
"Even your next-door neighbor?"
"I know it begins with a 2-5."
"Well, how about their names?"
I offered the two names I knew.
"And how do spell them?"
I had no idea. Was it "e" or "i"? Here I was, in a jam, unable to name more
than two people on my block, and incapable of spelling either one. I hung up
the phone with even less power than I started with.
What has happened to our neighborhoods? When I tell this story to people, they
nod with sad familiarity. Most of us, it seems, can't tell you who lives
beyond the reach of our sprinkler systems. If we're in attached homes, it's a
mystery who's beyond the adjacent walls. If we're in apartments, we might nod
at whoever gets off the elevator. Otherwise, forget it.
In my old neighborhood, you not only knew the people, you knew where to find
them. Parents were either inside or on their porches. Children gathered by the
basketball court. When their mothers or fathers wanted them, they would step
out into the street and holler, "MICH-AEL!" or "MI-CHELLE!" "TIME FOR DINNER!"
The kids would come running. If they didn't, another parent would go out to
say, "Didn't you hear your mother call you?"
A terrible truth
The temptation is to say that we are more selfish now. More self-absorbed. We
shuffle our kids to skating lessons, gymnastics lessons, art school, church.
Sign of the times. The Me Decade, followed by the Greed Decade, followed by
the My Family Is More Important Than Yours Decade.
But then you read last week's story from Jacksonville, Fla. An 8-year-old girl
named Maddie bursts happily out her front door, going to play with the other
kids on her well-kept block. Only she doesn't come home. And next thing you
know, her parents are on television, weeping, saying they never should have
let her leave the house. They distribute leaflets. They hang yellow ribbons in
trees. They pray.
And finally, police discover their little girl. She is taped to the bottom of
a waterbed, stabbed to death, her corpse rotting away. The murder suspect, who
confessed, is a 14-year-old boy.
Her neighbor.
So maybe neighborhoods aren't what they once were. Or maybe we aren't.
Whatever cord used to hold a block together, give it a sense of collective
snow-shoveling, collective lawn-mowing, collective parenting, is dying now,
being replaced by fear. We lock our doors. We drive our kids. We don't say too
much.
I stroll through my neighborhood. I wave at the families. I call out their
names -- I can spell them all, even the children. But it is only in my mind.
It is a long-departed street. It was a long time ago.
To leave a message for Mitch Albom, call 1-313-223-4581. He will sign
"Tuesdays With Morrie," noon-1 p.m. Nov. 27 at Barnes & Noble in Bloomfield
Hills and 1-2 p.m. Nov. 28 at Borders in Novi.
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
COLUMN;PSYCHOLOGY;NEIGHBORHOOD