I am from a small town in rural Wisconsin where people smile and say “hi” to strangers walking down to street or wave at other cars as they’re driving by. Neighbors help each other out just because, well, that’s just what neighbors do. It is one of those towns where everybody knew just about everybody, and in one way or another people just looked out for each other.
This is kind of embarrassing, but I remember one day when I was about 17 my dad asked me to go put gas in the truck. The truck was a stick-shift and I didn’t know how to drive it so I told him so. My dad just chuckled and said “well, you’ll know how to drive one by the time you come back”, and showed me the basics of driving a stick shift. To start off I drove to the gas station just fine, parked the truck, put gas in it, and attempted to drive off but couldn’t get the truck to go. I was sitting there for five minutes trying to get the truck to move but just couldn’t manage it. One of my mom’s co-workers recognized me and offered me his help, it turned out that I had the parking brake on! So I finally got the truck to go and thought I was getting the hang of it. I was at a four-way intersection with all stop-signs and when it was my turn to go I for the life of me couldn’t get the truck in gear. Once again, I was sitting there for five minutes when a woman knocked on the window and said “Honey, what are you having problems with? Is it the clutch or the gear shift?” I told her that it was the clutch, and she said “well, scoot over honey and I’ll get you out of the intersection”. That kind woman left her car in the road and helped me move the truck out of the way. I thanked her and she walked back to get her car. I finally get the truck going, am back on my way to my parents house when I was at another stop sign and couldn’t get the truck to move again. I was so frustrated by this point, especially because I could see my house from the stop sign! I am sitting at the stop sign (thankfully it wasn’t a busy intersection) trying to get the truck in gear when another van came up behind me. I waved the van to go past me when another woman rolled down her window and asked if I needed help. I told her no, that I was almost home and that I think I could manage. Frustrated, I finally got home, thankful for the help of all those kind people…but it was a long time before I attempted to drive a stick shift again (I know how to drive one now, btw).
So what was the point of that story? Well, people I did not even know were kind enough to take a few minutes out of their day to help me out. Now, I don’t know if it’s a Midwestern thing or a small-town thing or what, but I just don’t find see that very often anymore. Bamberg is a fairly small community, and when I walk down the street I look people in the eye, smile, and say “hello” and you know what? Most of the time people either look at me like I’m either crazy or a complete idiot, or they choose to totally ignore me altogether. Where I grew up, if someone says “hello”, you respond to them and it is considered rude to ignore them.
Most of my neighbors living in my stairwell are great neighbors, the families that I am acquainted with I know I can go and ask them for an egg or to borrow a tool or something, and the rest of them smile and say “hi” when I pass them in the stairwell or see them in the laundry room. Some of the neighbors I don’t know so well, though, can be pretty inconsiderate to the rest of us. Some neighbors take up all four washers (which is fine, I do it too) but then take HOURS to move their laundry from the washers to the dryers. I don’t even think they give a thought to the fact that other people in the building might want to start laundry too. If I am using all four dryers and see that people have stuff in the washers, I knock on their door and let them know that the dryers are open. Does anyone else offer that same courtesy? No. One neighbor (I don’t know for sure who it is, otherwise I’d confront them) puts their garbage in my garbage can. If it were one bag, fine…but they fill it up to the point where I don’t have room for my trash. Other neighbors (not from my stairwell) don’t clean up after their pets, and insist on walking their animals in the same area that our children play or where barbecues are held. Other neighbors allow their guests to park in parking spots that are marked for certain apartments rather than ask them to park in the unmarked guest parking.
Those are just a few examples of things I have to deal with, but all of them bother me because I personally cannot bring myself to be so inconsiderate of my neighbors. I would feel horrible if I knew I put out one of my neighbors because of something inconsiderate I had done. There are some things that just come along with living in shared housing, such as hearing things from other apartments, but for the most part a lot of the little annoyances can be alleviated if people were just a bit more considerate of their neighbors. If there is one thing that I have learned in the past ten years, though, is that common courtesy isn’t so common, but the world would be a much nicer place to live in if it were.
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