Love Thy(your) Neighbor bark Biblical bible boundary Bunch commandment Comprise decoration Define driveway
Emergency estate fence Folklore Grand
Impractical
Limitation limit Neighborliness Nostalgia Originally Proximity
Shade small-talk Wander wonder Call up come and go
Out of style out of fashion
In common
Have sth.(nothing) in common On order
Real estate set fire to To begin with
It seems to me that neighbors are going out of style in America. The friend next door from whom you borrowed four eggs or a ladder has moved, and the people in there now are strangers.
Some of the old folklore of neighborliness is impractical or silly, and it is likely that our relations with our neighbors are changing. The biblical commandment to ―Love Thy Neighbor‖ was probably a poor translation of what must have
originally been ―Respect Thy Neighbor‖. Love can’t be called up on order.
Fewer than half the people in the United States live in the same house they lived in five years ago, so there’s no reason to love the people who live next door to you just because they happened to wander into a real estate office that listed the place next door to yours. The only thing neighbors have in common to begin with is proximity, and unless something more develops, that isn’t reason enough to be best friends. It sometimes happens naturally, but the chances are very small that your neighbors
will be your choice as best friends. Or that you will be theirs, either. The best relationship with neighbors is one of friendly distance. You say hello, you small-talk if you see them in the yard, you discuss problems as they arise and you help each other in emergency. It’s the kind of arrangement where you see more of them in the summer than in the winter. The driveway or the fence between you is not really cold shoulder, but a clear boundary. We all like clearly defined boundaries for ourselves.
If neighbors have changed, neighborhoods have not. They still comprise the same elements. If you
live in a real neighborhood you can be sure most of the following people will be found there.
One family with more kids than they can take care of.
One grand home with a family so rich that they really aren’t part of the neighborhood.
A bad kid who steals or sets fire to things, although no one has ever been able to prove it.
People who leave their Christmas decorations until March.
Someone who doesn’t cut their grass more than twice a summer. A family that never seems to turn off any lights in the house.
A teenager who plays the radio too