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Showing Original Post only (View all)The young couple who live next door to me [View all]
dropped by this evening with their two children, about 5 and 3 years old. The reason for their visit? They wanted to let me know that they were having a children's party tomorrow afternoon and that there might be a bit of noise. I laughed and told them that the kids were welcome to make as much noise as they wanted. They told me that they had rented one of those bouncy houses. I thought about that and realized that it would take up much of their backyard, so I told them they were welcome to put it in my backyard if that would be more convenient. We don't have a fence between our yards, just a continuous lawn that we both mow at about the same time each week. They liked the idea.
This is a neighborhood right smack in the middle of St. Paul, MN. It's a biggish city, but that's what this neighborhood is like. Few fences. Nice neighbors. Lots of diversity. My wife and I have been invited to Hmong family parties, have shared roast goat at a home with a Somali family, and have hosted a block barbeque.
The American neighborhood lives on. Not everywhere, I suppose, but in this working class neighborhood with a mix of families with children and old farts like me, it still lives on. As far as I can tell, it's not all that different from how things were in the small town neighborhood I grew up in in the 1950s.
I just wanted to post something good and normal that is happening here in the city. Life goes on apace.