Have we become a community of strangers? The idyllic quintessential neighborhoods of the 1950s and 1960s no longer exist. Mayberry is a thing of the past. We no longer know our neighbors. Too bad, as there are heroes among us. The house that is seven down the street from mine sold about six months ago. It belonged to an elderly couple that had lived there 22 years. I have lived in my house 19 years. We have waved to each other occasionally over the years, but had never really engaged. The weekend before the movers arrived, there was an estate sale at the house that transpired over the course of three days. Essentially, it was a garage sale of almost everything in the house. The sale was administered by a contract third party. It was very impersonal. Each succeeding day, the prices were reduced. I had been traveling the first two days of the sale, but when I drove by on the third day, there were lots of cars lined up on both sides of the street. I thought I had better check out all of the commotion. As expected, the bits of fabric of someone's life were scattered across the remnants of what was left in the house. This kind of environment always makes me a little uncomfortable. Perhaps it is the feeling of mortality knocking on my door.
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