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Yet, for all the years I’ve lived here, I barely know any of them [neighbors]. When I think back to my own chldhood, that fact shocks me. In my hometown a couple of generations ago, we knew everyone.

Photo: Martha Cooper Varick A. Chittenden is professor emeritus of English, SUNY Canton College of Technology, and executive director of Traditional Arts in Upstate New York (TAUNY).

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I prefer the Latin term "communitas" to "community," to distinguish this modality of social relationship (society as an unstructured or rudimentarily structured and relatively undifferentiated ... community) from an "area of common living." —Victor Turner Judy and I have lived in the same house for the past twenty-four years, only a half-mile from the Canton village limits. According to local memory, our road was unpaved until the mid-1960s. At that time there were perhaps four or five houses, each attached to a small dairy farm. Over the years since, new homes have been built along the four-plus miles of town highway to its end—a mixture of suburban-style ranches, ersatz log "cabins," and "manufactured homes," each with an acre or more of mowed lawn and three vehicles in the driveway. I can now see eight of these houses from my mailbox out front. Our nearest neighbors are a couple of hundred yards away. Yet, for all the years I’ve lived here, I barely know any of them. When I think back to my own childhood, that fact shocks me. In my hometown a couple of generations ago, we knew everyone. Pals my own age—Danny, Roger, Mark, and Larry—were in and out of each other’s houses almost daily. Our mothers watched over us all as if we were their own. I would see most of them regularly in my Dad’s general store, or at the post office, where we went twice a day to pick up the mail. Often as not, I would drop in at Aunt Charlotte’s house next door for some leftover breakfast or fresh-made cookies. I made regular stops in many of the thirty houses in the hamlet, on my rounds with the daily paper. We knew the good news and the bad news in each other’s lives. And we were there to celebrate and grieve together. While our sense of community came from "an area of common living," it also came from common experiences and common concerns. In my neighborhood today, most of us don’t know each other at all. Few of us grew up here or have many local ties. Men and women leave home early in the morning to drive to work, often twenty miles away. Kids come and go on school buses, sometimes arriving home in the dark, after hockey practice or music lessons. I can think of two neighborhood parties in our entire time here (we didn’t host either of them), and the last big gathering—six years ago—was, unfortunately, for the Sheesley’s barn fire. Don’t get me wrong. We’re friendly when we see each other. We wave and exchange greetings, but that’s the extent of contact. We usually seem to have little in common but proximity. But a recent book has reminded me of the strong sense of community that still exists here when we are put to the test. Stephen Doheny-Farina’s The Grid and the Village: Losing Electricity, Finding Community, Surviving Disaster (Yale University Press, 2001) is a fascinating and well-written account of his own experiences—shared by many of us in northern New York—with the Ice Storm of 1998, a slow-moving disaster that nearly crippled the northernmost part of the Northeast (as well as Ontario and Québec) for the better part of January. For eight days, Judy and I were at home without heat or electricity in temperatures that sometimes dipped below zero; less populated areas waited a month. Roads were closed for days, even weeks; a state of emergency was declared by both the governor and the President; only the U.S. Army, utility crews, and emergency vehicles were allowed (or able) to travel for many days. This was a frightening and stressful time. The good news, however, is what we found in ourselves and in our neighbors when we needed it. The stories of how people helped one another are legion. Despite all the official emergency shelters, food banks, and fuel supplies, it was the little things and personal stories that remain with most of us. Our young neighbors from directly across the street came over at two in the morning to help us restart our rented electric generator. Four days into the storm, nobody minded waiting in line for over an hour at the hardware store for batteries and lamp oil and water canisters (in fact, there was general good humor and the chance to chat with people we hadn’t seen in years or had never even met). A trip to the darkened grocery store was an adventure, as clerks handed out flashlights and we fumbled down the food aisles looking for cold cereal or bread or anything that didn’t require cooking. We learned of many kind gestures, big and small: farmers delivered hay to remote farms that were running out of feed; college professors prepared meals for senior citizens evacuated to the school gym from the local high rise; people called in to the public radio station to read favorite stories or poetry to entertain listeners desperate for diversion; whole families, pets and all, collected in larger houses with fireplaces for days at a time. In Doheny-Farina’s word, we became "mindful" of each other in a way that neighbors used to be. Even in rural America, we have become far too dependent on the multinational corporate world to provide us with electricity, fuel, food, and other necessities. Our responses to the Ice Storm showed us that our best resources are the people nearby. Somehow, as challenging as that time was, I really believe that many of us felt much better for the experience. For me, it was a satisfying reminder of my days as a kid. I realize that I’ve been missing something and I’d like to get it back. But I also know it’s up to me. "Judy? Let’s plan a party and invite the neighborhood!"

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