By Bonnie Brown

Columnist

I often notice that although we are all “neighbors” we are often not very neighborly. Do you know your neighbors? Do you interact with one another? A neighbor is defined as “someone who lives nearby” and with whom you may form friendships.

When I was growing up, we knew all our neighbors and their extended families. We all looked out for one another. If a child misbehaved, that child’s behavior was reported to the parent and often the neighbor might correct the child at the time of the infraction. By the same token, the neighbor would also step in when needed to mend a broken toy or bandage a boo-boo.

How do you become a good neighbor? When we moved into our new home many years ago, I soon was on maternity leave and home for 9 weeks. I was busy taking care of a newborn, caring for our other son, and trying to run an efficient household. When we moved into the neighborhood, we were so fortunate to meet many neighbors who were not living next door. You see, we lived in the country and in most instances houses were separated by some distance.

Yet, so many of our new neighbors stopped by bringing items of food and other helpful items for us as new homeowners.

We were genuinely so pleased to have this kind of attention. It was heartwarming. We thought of how we might reciprocate and decided that I could bake some bread. It was a favorite activity of mine, and I was so excited to show our new neighbors how much we appreciated their kindness.

So, early one morning, I set about baking loaf bread and baguettes. It was a full-day’s job, and the kitchen was well dusted with flour and cluttered from all the various ingredients. What a mess! But I was quite pleased with the outcome.

My husband arrived home from work, and according to our plan, he would deliver the bread throughout the neighborhood and thank each neighbor for their kindness and thoughtfulness while gifting them some home-made bread. I know he was proud of my hard work and pleased to be distributing the bread and personally thanking our neighbors for being—well, good neighbors.

However, as soon as my husband was on his way to make the deliveries, I began cleaning up the mess.

I had hardly begun when I noticed that the end of my “pinkie” fingernail had broken off! Oh no! How and when could that have happened? I carefully searched amid the messy kitchen hoping to find a tiny little fingernail without success.

When Tom arrived home, I was near tears and told him he needed to go back to each neighbor’s home and retrieve the bread. He was stunned and after just a few seconds in thought, he said “No, what were the chances that the fingernail actually got baked into any of the bread?” I had no idea, but I was still mortified at the very thought that might be the case. He calmed me as best as he could, and we decided not to go back to all the neighbors to retrieve the bread. Monumentally embarrassing for one thing, and unlikely that the fingernail found its way into the dough.

So, all of our intentions of being a good neighbor played out in an unlikely way. And thankfully, no one found a tiny fingernail in their homemade bread!

Always remember that good neighbors make great neighborhoods.