Is it a Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood?

Where is Mr. Rogers when we need him

I signed up for a neighborhood connection group where participants are meant — at least I thought this was the case — to share events, interests, and concerns.

I’ve been following the post for a month or so puzzled about the scope and focus of the group.

For one thing, the “neighborhood” seems to encompass at least seven other neighborhoods, many of them far from the initiated collection of houses.

I can see how adjoining neighborhoods might make sense for attracting followers. It’s strange, at the same time, to expand the group rather than give it more focus.

Someone from a distant neighborhood stretches the group out even further every few days. The neighborhood covers a ten-mile span now and keeps growing.

Most of the posts are about break-ins and potential thefts by suspicious-looking people. Other reported people are innocently out walking on streets, faced with disturbing encounters with roaming groups of people, especially teenagers. There are also many paranoid observations of the behaviors of people with mental health issues.

People report hearing random gunshots and sirens. One person overhears screaming. Another person hears a person randomly yelling while wandering.

The neighborhood I live in has had some dicey moments. I’m already aware and cautious of the fact. Last year a car turned over while speeding down the street. A woman was killed in a crosswalk by an oblivious driver and another young woman was killed in her car by a groundskeeper. I know there have been drive-by shootings on nearby streets.

If I pay too much attention to all of these new disturbing posts, it will make me more paranoid as well. That’s not helpful to my state of mind. So these days I’ve started erasing most of the panicked, emotional texts about thieves and scary people before I ever read them.

I tend to not wander nearby neighborhoods as much in the darker winter hours since I had to re-home my big dog several months ago. Evening light, fortunately, is steadily increasing as we move toward spring.

I also started exploring other sorts of posts versus the daily unsettling ones. Often, a person is looking for a mechanic, a plumber, or a roofing or landscape contractor recommendation. On other days people are asking about the best days to shop at Goodwill for better deals and less crowds. Practical news seems more useful.

And much less dramatic than the evocative posts.

I am not sure why my thinking keeps returning to Mr. Rogers as I’m writing about the new neighborhood group. Rogers had a pretty bizarre neighborhood himself.

I talked to a neighbor — who lives around the corner — about the neighborhood site. She said she keeps track of it for entertainment purposes at the end of a long workday.

“It’s gossip,” she said. “It reminds me of an ongoing soap opera.”

My neighbor considers most of the posts ridiculous.

“I’m not sure they’re even true,” she said. “It could easily be people of all ages trying to attract more attention.”

In any case, she takes it all with a grain of salt.

Key Phrase: Figuring my way through a confusing neighborhood group.