Sunday, September 16, 2007

Breton Village Neighborhood Association

i’m currently sitting on my front lawn with my housemates, enjoying the sunshine and feeding off the wireless internet connection from my house.  ian’s lying on the lawn next to me, and josh is juggling a soccer ball (or rather, football).  ah, the pleasures of working at home on a sunday afternoon.

yesterday afternoon, we pretty much met all our neighbors at once.  we’d been wondering how we could our neighbors, and this was the perfect opportunity.  the neighborhood association was having a potluck at the nearby elementary school, so we headed over there with our dish of thai friend shrimp (it was good stuff, one of the first dishes to be finished off), armed with smiles and conversation.  when we got there, i was surprised at how many people showed up.  i was told that our neighborhood has over 550 households, and more than 80 are in the neighborhood association.  i saw more than a few professors there, including the director of my honors program and my english 101 professor, and i also met a calvin community relations representative and some students.  it was fun getting to know the other calvin people in the neighborhood, but i was really more interested in meeting non-calvin people.  i see enough calvin people during the weekdays with classes and work, and i just need to meet some families in the area.

we had everyone from babies to senior citizens, and so we spent some time mingling and chatting with whoever looked friendly (which was everyone there).  we met two pastors of nearby churches, someone on the neighborhood association board who lived on our street, and some other senior citizens living right by us.  they were the kindest people, inviting us to come over for food in return for some help with moving furniture or some help with their computers.  homemade food is currency in my books, and i’m definitely tapping into that in the coming week.  i think the most gracious offer came from our neighbor across the street, bob and his wife (i never caught his wife’s name).  bob was the one who organized the entire potluck, and he is quite the celebrity in our neighborhood.  having lived there for over 40 years, he and his wife know the entire history of our block like the back of their hands.  when bob’s wife heard that we didn’t have a car at our house, she invited us to go to the grocery store with her on the weekends.  i had been wondering how we’d get groceries without a car, and i think we’ve got our solution.  our lack of a car has turned into a blessing for building a relationship with our neighbors.  how about that!

Posted by Nehe555 on 09/16 at 04:54 PM
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