Close Enough to Be Unavoidable

I was in a hurry when I drove past my next-door neighbor's house early Monday morning on my way to work. If I'd been walking, I would have stopped to chat. Anna and I had exchanged pleasantries every month or so the last couple years, our houses on either side of the stream flowing through our neighborhood. We would talk about tackling the vines overtaking the stream banks, gardening, dogs, car repairs and work stress. We even discovered we were born the same year.

Our neighborliness extended b...