Hallo Your Name to the Reverberate Hills

My community has once more exceeded my expectations. We attended a meeting of our street with representatives of City Hall this evening. It ended perhaps an hour ago.

Now our street measures only two blocks long, so we have relatively few households. And from that number, one must remove the houses which are vacant (sadly, quite a few) and those occupied by renters (traditionally, transitional, and therefore uninterested with any real commitment to the neighborhood). Amazingly, there were probably about 20 people in the meeting room by the time the meeting ended. Yes, that means people trickled in as the meeting progressed, ourselves included. Nowadays, folk do not have traditional 9-5 work schedules the way they used to in years past.

It's good to see so much interest in preserving the integrity of our neighborhood. It's good to see that people care. I was delighted to see faces I'd never seen before. I made a commitment to sit on my porch more this summer. I plan to do that as soon as it's warmer. I want to get to know these fine faces better.

It all started with one person calling City Hall with a complaint about one of the vacant houses. One person, one phone call, one cry for help. She was heard; assistance was offered to the community. All because of that one cry.

There was real warmth in that room. There were genuine smiles, and very robust handshakes. We solved some nagging neighborhood problems. I liked the friendliness behind the laughter. Names were exchanged. "OK, now which one do you live in?" ... "Oh! Sure! I'm just across the street, a bit further east, in the green one. We have lots of flowers..."

I think today is when the real thaw took place. I don't think we have to worry about late season frost anymore.