Eight years we’ve been in this house.  In that time the only neighbor’s name we knew was the guy who owned the house immediately next door.  He bought the house only a couple of months before we bought ours.  We were sad to see him move out over the winter, but when I saw new folks milling about in the spring I went over and introduced myself.  Thankfully, they’re nice folks.  While I was talking to them a neighbor across the street who’d seen me hundreds of times without a word called out and introduced herself to them as well.  She didn’t ask my name and apparently didn’t feel the need to know it.  She did say that she grew up in the house on the other side of ours.

That is the house we see from all our south-facing windows.  Four different sets of people have lived there in eight years.  Only the second set ever told us their names and talked with us.  To be fair, it is a rental property, owned by the real estate agent who sold us this house.  All day long at work I can see the tenants coming and going.  A married couple maybe a decade younger than us was there first.  Then a couple in their twenties/thirties—the friendly ones.  Then another couple with a couple of kids.  From overheard observations I gathered he worked in recruitment for Binghamton University (where my daughter went) and Rutgers (the last school at which I taught).  We have both Binghamton and Rutgers swag, but that never spurred any interest on their part.  Now I can’t figure out the renters.  They look like students to me, maybe from nearby Lehigh University.  There’s two men and two women (I think) but they never act like couples.  Who knows?

The other day I was out fighting the weeds when another neighbor across the street was outside.  She asked my name and this led to a conversation and learning, after all these years, hers and her husband’s names.  All of this brought to mind something I learned as a candidate for the ministry in the United Methodist Church.  Methodists practice itineracy—bishops move ministers every few years so that a “permanent” minister doesn’t become too settled.  It was then that I learned most congregations (neighborhoods?) don’t really feel comfortable with a minister until after about seven years, I think it was.  Seems like our timing is about right.  For the first time in eight years we know the names of two sets of homeowners in our immediate vicinity.  Welcome to the neighborhood.