HELLO FRIENDLY NEIGHBOR

Everybody lives next door to somebody in this town

Wisdom Wherever You Find It
 
Everybody lives next door to somebody in this town. 
​  Jen Halperin
 
I grew up in Wilmette, Illinois on a horseshoe-shaped street with a little pipestem at the top. Maybe everybody’s neighborhood was like mine, but if it were, the world would probably be in a little better shape.  The kids in my generation alone – all of whom are now senior citizens – made a lot of difference in their respective chosen professions: law, medicine, business, and more. One guy in law enforcement cracked a huge murder case, and another had two distinguished careers as a police chief. Two guys are TV writers (different genres) of renown. One is an expert on American songwriting. One is a world-famous triathlete. I am just scratching the surface.
 
I now live in Alexandria, Virginia, as close to DC as Wilmette is to Chicago. Over the years, my proximate neighbors have served Presidents of the United States, as chair of the Joint Chiefs, high up in the Federal Reserve, and as Members of Congress and the Senate.
 
In Los Angeles, everyone who isn’t in show business has a neighbor who is. In New York, it’s likely finance or law. A college friend’s father was mayor of their small city in Iowa. Everybody lives next door to somebody, and not just in this town.
 
I am not sure what the allure is of reflected glory. Whether it is fame or notoriety, people take a peculiar pride in proximity. I have noticed my own inclination to try to establish connections with new acquaintances by mentioning someone we have in common – as if that means anything!
 
And, by the way, I find it’s true even among folks who live a lower-profile life. “I know so-and-so” is a very usual way to establish credentials when trying to enter a social circle or exert some kind of influence.
 
Sometimes the behavior reaches levels of absurdity. I once stood next to my wife as a man chatted her up, and when he asked her name, he responded, “Oh, are you related to Jack?”  She said she was, and he replied, “He’s a good friend of mine. How is he doing?” (She said, “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”)
 
All sorts of dismissive idioms have become current to describe this phenomenon. Name-checking, humble brag, and a couple too profane for a family column are ways the kids these days try to show they have no use for the games grown-ups play, but it’s a sham. The culture of celebrity in which we live has spilled over from show business to whatever the business is in any neck of the woods, and the only thing that distinguishes the young Turks from the old poots is who is considered worth mentioning.
 
I will admit that it is hard to avoid dropping the name of a famous neighbor when the opportunity arises. But it’s worth practicing restraint. Everybody lives next door to somebody, but every somebody has to live in that next door.  Sometimes home is the only refuge from that fame or notoriety, and the Grand Poohbah is no less entitled to it than the grunt who just put in an eight-hour shift. If someone well-known chooses not to advertise where they live, basic decency demands that the rest of us respect it.
 
And notwithstanding the cliché that it’s not what you know, it is who you know (actually “whom” is correct here), living near an accomplished or notorious person doesn’t make you fortunate, prestigious, or contagiously famous.

I will tell you who is worth living near. The family that lived across the street from that house in Wilmette, Illinois was no one you ever heard of. But every little kid in the neighborhood knew that if you rang the doorbell, the mom who answered always had a cookie for you.

That’s even better than living next door to the rabbi.