From Bluntly Speaking by Robert J.L. Publicover

(Editor‚Äôs note:  I asked Bob to give me a ‚Äútimeless‚Äù column of his from a decade or so ago ‚Äì he gave me several to choose from and I liked this one ‚Äì I hope you do too ‚Äì JN)

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

What exactly is a neighborhood? We hear talk that “Sanctuary City” is destroying our neighborhoods. Yet, can it really do that? I doubt it. Sanctuary City is illegal. We cannot disobey federal laws regarding illegal aliens. I would love to repeal Sanctuary City if it was on the ballot, but that really is not an issue of neighborhood.

The dictionary says: “Neigh-bor-hood – n. Nearness; proximity; the region near or about some place or thing; the vicinity; a district of locality, often with reference to its character or inhabitants; as a rundown or fashionable neighborhood; a number of persons living near one another in a particular locality…”

That’s not really a very good “real” description of what a neighborhood is all about. Somerville is still a city of many neighborhoods…ask someone who has lived on the same street for many years.

The neighbors may consist of the people next door and across the street or of many people on a given street. There is a special relationship among the people who live in a neighborhood. They may be there for many years or only have moved in recently but that feeling is still there.

I lived in the same house near Davis Square for most of the first 30 years of my life. A great neighborhood. When I moved away from home, I got all the way across the street and a couple of houses down.

It is really the things that happen between people living on a street that make a neighborhood. Neighborhood when I lived on that street was when Bruno came over and shoveled my mother’s walk before I got the chance to do so. Neighborhood was when Ann would cook a little extra and send it down the street to my house…or when something smelled good when I happened to drop by, there was always room for one more dinner…and there still is to this day.

You’ve heard the stories of someone getting in an accident and the folks in the neighborhood hold a fund raising dance to help them get by. It has happened more times in Somerville than I can count. I hear the stories because of being in this business of news. The happen a lot. The “neighbors” recently cleaned up Foss Park. Another group of “neighbors” is heading to clean up Prospect Hill Park this weekend.

When I finally managed to buy my own home near City Hall (no, I was not planning to run for office at the time), I wondered what it would be like. You don’t get to find out much about the people on the street before you move in. I had a house warming party a few weeks after moving into the house. No complaints from the neighbors, no police cars coming by to tell me that the neighbors wanted us to quiet down.

I didn’t think of that as a sign that I moved to a good neighborhood. It wasn’t too long after that when two puppies showed up on my front porch on a rainy day. I kept them for a week until we hunted down the owner nearly a week later. She was quite happy with her neighbor!

My own puppy was out in the front yard one day when I went off to work. A downpour raged into town. I knew that I did not have the time to head home, so the dog would get drenched. Nope. Jim, across the street, whose name I did not even know, had run across and taken the puppy into his house. That’s neighborhood.

When a good friend died recently, he left behind two cats for which we decided to try to find homes. Of course, the next day, we found four – two cats, two new kittens. Oops.

Our neighbors helped find homes for all of them. Clare, across the street, found that Mama cat had worms and had never been spayed, so she headed off to the vet and paid the bill herself. That’s neighborhood.

If you have had a relative pass away, remember how many of the neighbors dropped by with some food “just in case you needed it”? That, too, is what neighborhood is all about.

If you are a long-term resident, you’ve had a lot of experiences with neighborhood. If you’ve just come here recently, you many be lucky enough to have moved into a good neighborhood. Neighborhoods don’t just exist. You make them.

Somerville is still a city of many wonderful neighborhoods from Teele Square to Foss Park; from Davis Square to Ten Hills. That will only change if we do. Let’s not.