COMMUNITY LIVING: APARTMENT BUILDING vs CUL DE SAC

Community living is as close as most people get to being where “Everybody knows your name.”

Cheers.

Old Flat Top lives on the second floor, last door on the left.

He dates Cindy on the third floor. Her place has a beautiful curved wall. They’re thinking about moving in together.

Her place, not his.

They’ve known each other two months.

He dated the woman who used to live in the curved wall apartment. The whole apartment building of neighbors talked about it.

There are common rules about dating in one building, and only dating one apartment, but Flat Top isn’t a rules guy.

The community part of apartment life is the people you meet in common areas, like the mail box, the front door, the laundry room, where people share apartment ideas like these.

The sense of familiarity is a comfort for some, but not so much for the recluse.

In an outgoing environment, a recluse is a hard role to maintain. NW Portland, at least on the flat side under 26th, is an apartment living Mecca.

The flow of life runs from family living, dorm life, apartment life, then married life. That’s how it ran for me, at least.

See that door in the top pic? That’s where I proposed to my wife. When I pointed it out thirty odd years later, one of us didn’t remember.

Cul De Sac Community Living

I got married and moved to a house on a cul de sac. It was smaller than my last apartment. The difference was the size of the yard, and since kids were part of the deal, the yard was key for getting outside without going too far.

At first it was lonely after leaving the the constant contact with the same people every day.

There are no apartment buildings on cul de sacs.

Neighbors, yes, but it’s not the same. Everyone is more invested in living there and it’s takes the new guy time to catch up.

The best you can do is doing the best you can. If a neighbor asks for a helping hand, help out. If they ask to borrow something, be neighborly.

Once I got the hang of things, I bought a power washer. When someone asked to borrow it and brought it back semi-trashed, I chalked it up as a learning experience.

While I shopped for a replacement, I asked the sales guy for the most important key to extend a power washer life. He kept it simple:

“Never loan it out.”

Cul de Sac Drama

It’s easier to live a private life outside an apartment building.

But little by little the curtains get pulled back.

An ambulance pulls up on the dead end street is a clue; DEA agents chasing around the yard is another clue.

Once the air is clouded by people living life the best they can, apartment living takes on another role.

It’s too easy to say, “People are stupid,” but the evidence is in.

The single man neighbor who threatens to pop all of the kids’ basketballs because the sound of fun bothers him; the older bully who wants to play with younger kids because they’re easier to knock around; the jack of all trades who says, “You’ve got more money than brains,” because you don’t do everything plumbing and electrical that needs to be done in a house.

There’s a learning curve, and it takes time to flatten it out.

Community living on a cul de sac becomes very familiar, and not always in a good way. But the social veneer holds up.

Social Media In Community Living

Today, this day of February 11, 2021, the social veneer feels torn.

After the last presidential election outcome in November, then the US Capitol attack on Jan. 2, 2021, it feels ripped, but not down the middle.

A group of disgruntled citizens found a reason to go berserk in public, and now with the lights shining brightly, they want to recede into the background.

But the FBI keeps putting out photos of ‘If You Recognize This Man Please Call This Number.’

In a game of cat and mouse, which is which?

Will neighbors give up neighbors?

These are new questions, along with speculations about which neighbor would most likely storm the capitol if they didn’t have to drive so far. Which one would fly out in a private jet to join the great unwashed?

One man reportedly said he’d do harm to his kids if they turned him in.

Reffitt is alleged to have later threatened to “put a bullet through” his daughter’s cellphone if she recorded or mentioned his comments on social media, the affidavit says.

Reffitt’s wife told investigators that during an argument, he told his children that if one of them turned him in, “you’re a traitor and you know what happens to traitors … traitors get shot.”

But he’s probably a great guy in the neighborhood, but community living in his own family might be a problem.

We all have opinions and disagreements that clash. That’s the beauty of America, speak up, but don’t take your guns to town, son.

The current impeachment trial is based on a president goading his followers to heed his words. And they did.

Consider the scenes from the Jan. 6 attack, then click the link below.

There are some eerie similarities between then and now.

Russian White House bombing in 1993.

Comments welcome.