Where are the old-time neighbourhoods as we remember them? Friendlier? More closely knit? Everyone knew everyone else? Every child was known by name. Everyone watched out for their neighbour, their neighbour’s property while the neighbours were vacationing.
Well, those good neighbourhoods haven’t all disappeared. Some are still around…
Fiddlers Court – an old-time neighbourhood
On a recent Saturday, the weather gods blessed us with a beautiful day, the neighbourhood held a block party. Close to a hundred people attended. Relatives and friends of neighbourhood residents came from as far away as Columbia, South America. Now that’s what you call a far-reaching response to a party invitation when guests from thousands of miles away attend.
The grassy court at the foot of the street was turned into party central: mini-basketball hoops for the kids, a badminton net for the active adults, propane barbecues, benches and chairs, and tables laden with homemade potluck foods. Two neighbourhood guys, Steve and Darryl manned the bbq’s smokin’ up hot dogs, hamburgers and brats. Table foods went beyond just the basics with Robert’s homebaked pizza, Nadia’s 5-bean medley salad, Kathy’s Macedonian cookies converted to Canadian deliciousness and many other eatables satisfied the hunger pangs of neighbourhood attendees.
Music, played at a neighbourhood-acceptable reasonable volume, added to the atmosphere of fun and celebration. Name tags ensured that finally, ‘that unknown neighbour’ now had a name.
Everyone mingled and mixed to assure themselves that now they would know the name of that previously known-by-face-only neighbour.
A big thanks is due to the two neighbours who spearheaded the whole endeavour: Elisabeth Hazelton and Peggy Leung. A “neighbourhood thank you” is due to George also. He’s our resident one-man cleanup crew: every garbage day he walks through the entire neighbourhood and relocates the green bins and blue boxes from the curb to the homeowner’s garage door. George, thanks for doing that for us all.
Thank you neighbours, you make our neighbourhood one of the city’s THE BEST!
