I grew up "Downriver". Riverview - or Riverdale as we gested after Archie and Jughead fame - is a small bedroom community located about 20miles south of Detroit. Like most of us boomers and post boomers, I grew up in a neighborhood that had sidewalks and porches. Our parents actually sat on our porch and watched us play in the street...imagine THAT. We flew paper kites and floated plastic army boats in the (probably contaminated) water that flowed up against the curbs as cars and neighbors traveled past. My folks "shot the breeze" with the other folks in the neighborhood. It was nice. It was neighborhoodly.
Things are a little different for neighborhoods nowadays. We don't have curbs, porches or sidewalks necessarily. Instead, we have things that blot out the front porches: HOAs, really big homes requiring hired upkeep; walking/running/jogging for fitness sake only; the plugging in & zoning out with MP3 players etc. We spend most of our time indoors behind our technology. Do you see the trend? We are losing touch with our Neighborhoodliness. The front porch is becoming obsolete.
But there is hope for us. Hugh Hewitt posts the below column about how we can save face with our community thru Twitter and other means. In fact, he makes it almost a moal imperitive that we do so lest we lost our sense of community identity.
Hugh Hewitt : Renewal in the Winter: Another Push for Twittered Conservatives - Townhall.com
No comments:
Post a Comment