Neighborhood More Than Group Of Houses

We’ve been twice-blessed by living in neighborhoods that possess a sense of community. That sense too often is missing from people’s lives.

We moved from Portland more than 30 years ago to a then-new development in a north Spokane suburb.

Exactly why a sense of community developed there, I’m not sure. There were differences in occupations, ages, income, educational background and interests. There were working mothers and non-working mothers - but we came together.

We looked after one another’s children, checked on sick neighbors, rejoiced over weddings, promotions, graduations and felt a sense of loss when a family moved away.

When our daughter went to college and later moved away from Spokane, she told new friends about her old neighborhood.

She told about the post trick-or-treating bonfires where mothers and fathers and children gathered around the towering blaze to drink hot chocolate, eat doughnuts and count the plunder.

There were Christmas parties and midsummer parties when we blocked off a short street to make way for picnic tables loaded with fried chicken and baked beans.

The kids decorated dirt bikes and wagons and staged a parade. Our daughter said people were amazed by her memories of her childhood neighborhood.

That first experience came early in our life as a family. The second one has come later, after retirement, in North Idaho.

Again we built a small home, in a development, but this time above the shores of Lake Coeur d’Alene. Again we have been blessed to be in a real community, an accidental collection of people from many parts of the country.

Like our Spokane neighborhood, the residents are not all of the same age, background, education, economic status or interests, but without much thought or planning we’ve established a sense of community.

What does it take to bring this about?

Perhaps a willingness to be open, to take a chance in getting to know someone new, a willingness to invest time if it means just picking up the phone and saying, “I saw your lights on, so I figured you were back from your trip. It’s sure good to have you home.”

It’s many other things too: It’s Bob, an early riser who picks up papers from the tubes down on the county road and deposits them on porches in time for morning coffee. It’s calls from neighbor to neighbor when illness strikes. It’s the casual invitation to share a supper of stew or chili or a gooey dessert and an impromptu game of cards.

It’s also neighborhood parties, Halloween, Christmas or just any old time. It’s unquestioning help with a dead car battery or reluctant generator when a storm knocks out the power along the lake. It’s sharing life’s ups and downs, planting a tree in remembrance of a friend and neighbor who died before we really got to know her.

Then there is our midsummer madness, a parade around the circle of our neighborhood followed by a potluck picnic. We decorate our cars, boats, tractors and, led by the engines of the East Side Fire District and the blast of the burner from one neighbor’s hot air balloon, we parade for just a few spectators because almost everyone is part of the parade. Afterward, participants get a prize for the best whatever. No one goes home empty-handed.

The national media has focused on portraying North Idaho as a place for loners who head off to the hills, rejecting society. True, there are some who do.

But a longtime resident of North Idaho observed, “If people want to vanish and not have anyone know what they are doing, this is the wrong place to come. Everyone will know all about you pretty quick.”

Most agree that newcomers are drawn here by the country.

But after they arrive, they may find one of the Gem state’s less publicized treasures, a sense of community.