Do you know your neighbors? ….

Do you know your neighbors?

Yeah, you might see them in passing. It being Wisconsin you probably wave when you see their car go by or when they are out walking their dog.

But really, do you know your neighbors? Having small children involved in activities like scouting is a good way to get to know people as you walk with them as they go door to door shaking the neighborhood down for cookies, tins of popcorn and other fundraisers. You might also get a chance to meet neighbors when you take your children around for-trick or- treating — always volunteering to take them to the house of the neighbor who hands out cans of beer to all the dads that come by.

If you don’t have one of those in your neighborhood, are you really in Wisconsin?

It has been a long time since I went trick-or-treating with my kids, and even longer since I went with them as they sold Boy Scout wreathes and Girl Scout cookies. I have gotten to the stage where I actively need to start searching out new potential Girl Scout Cookie dealers to replenish my stash.

So what do you do to meet and connect with your neighbors if you don’t have the excuse of guilting them into buying stuff for your kids’ fundraisers?

This is a real problem in Medford and throughout communities across the state and country.

Most of us get up in the morning, go to our cars and drive to work. At night we drive home go inside and either doom-scroll on our phones or watch television programs until we go to bed, sometimes we do both at the same time.

Each day it is the same routine. You might break up the pattern by taking part in a league sport like adult basketball or an activity like pool or darts.

You might know your bowling, golf, or curling buddies as well as the others on the leagues you play on. Chances are you know them better than the people who live on your block.

When I was young we would go visit my grandmother in her home in Camden, NJ. Camden is what people describe as a “distressed community” when they are being nice. Armpit of the universe is a more accurate description, although I hear it is getting gentrified as rich people are buying up the old townhouses — we called them rowhomes when I was a kid.

My grandparents lived in what people in central Wisconsin would call a “rough neighborhood” where more often than not there were broken bottles on the sidewalks and a high likelihood that someone might try to break into your car if you left something nice sitting out.

The thing I remember most as the suburban kid coming into the city was that it was a true neighborhood. My dad could name the people who had lived on the block for decades, and they knew him and my grandmother and they would all look out for one another. The kids at play in the street would be told off by any adult if they were stepping out of line. As the day turned into night and the streetlights turned on, voices were called out from porches to call people in for dinner.

My grandmother moved from the neighborhood shortly after my grandfather died and we had no reason to go back to the neighborhood where my dad grew up. I doubt I would even recognize it now, even though I can still remember the musty closed up smell of their home and the fake grapes that sat in the bowl on their dining room table.

I fear we have lost something as a society when we no longer know our neighbors. When the community’s children are kept locked up inside or get shuttled from one over-scheduled activity to another with no free time to be bored in the endless summer afternoons, or have epic neighborhood wide snow battles in the winter.

Nowadays, telling someone else’s kid to knock it off when they are doing something wrong could get you chewed out by an irate mama-bear parent defending their cub or worse.

We need to find our way back to the kind of place where we spend more time sitting on front porches and less time glued to devices. We need to rebuild neighborhoods and the connections with those around us.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.

Contact Brian at BrianWilson@centralwinews.com.