I had to buy a stamp in order to mail a letter. Can you believe it’s up to 73 cents per stamp?
But I digress.
Heading out of the Post Office, I kindly greeted a stranger and received a kind greeting back. I started thinking about all the interactions we have with people in our daily travels, and how many of those can be positive if we just set a positive tone.
I started to think about other positively-charged things that we have that we often don’t stop to think about. We have power lines that feed electricity to the homes and buildings in each city and town; culinary water suitable for drinking coming out of our faucets; irrigation water for our yards; sewer systems allowing us the joy of indoor plumbing. There’s trash pick-up; natural gas for cooking and heating the home; internet service; cell phone service; asphalt roads (which can be a touchy subject in some places).
The list goes on, and I’m sure you could name a few I have forgotten. We may quibble about the cost of some of our services at times, but by and large, this arrangement we have is beneficial to all citizens of our community, town, or city. Many people move to towns and cities because of the infrastructure and services available. Imagine the enormity of the task of living if we had to do ALL of it all by ourselves.
Just the sewer system alone is such a convenience when considering a very cold morning or night and the need to answer nature’s call, trudging 20 yards through the snow to an outhouse with a lantern to sit upon a frosty seat to relieve oneself. Brrrr-rrrrr-rrrrrr. It makes me cold just typing it! I am overjoyed with modern-day indoor plumbing!
Of course, this living in a community idea came a long time before I entered this world. There is a lot of thought, trial and error, difficulties, calculations, experimentations, and many nasty failures that come with the development of communities. I stand on the shoulders of giants who made this all possible. I guess most of us take for granted all that it has taken to get us to where we are today.
I also understand that it all comes at a price. More than a monetary price. You can’t just do whatever you want to when living in a community. You have to temper the hours you’ll be making noise and the amount of noise that you make. Even polite neighbors can only tolerate so much. That’s where the term neighborly comes from: being able to give up some behaviors that others may find offensive in the understanding that they will do the same for you. Some have taken this to a new art form – which now reminds me of a joke: What do you call a group of Karens? An HOA!
Sorry, I have digressed again.
Getting to the point. Community gives as well as it gets. Communities may have many or all of the following: a library, little league sports, pageants, senior citizen activities, support of the arts, provide parks and recreation areas, hiking/mountain biking trails, concerts, rodeos, parades, boutiques, fireworks, and more! How much manpower does it take to have all those wonderful things? It takes the work of many volunteers to make such things happen. Your community needs those volunteers. It needs you! It needs your time, your efforts, and it needs your heart. Let’s face it, the more you care about your community, the better your community will be. A community consists of the great people you interact with, who make living easy and wonderful. Lets support our community. Get involved!
Submitted by William Boardman
