Last summer I was enjoying a day at the beach in Oakledge park with my family and some friends. Our four small children were thrilled to be in the water and combing the short stretch of sand for little treasures. As I stood where the bike path terminates along the back of the beach, I looked out and surveyed my brood thinking like a lifeguard… how long would it take me to get to my three-year-old who was wading in beyond bellybutton depth… what if my wife slipped and dropped our newborn in the water… typical father duty.
I can’t begin to describe then the shock when a fighter jet exploded through the air just above our heads. The earth shook. My ears rang. The jet, flying so low that we had no warning before it burst over the trees a hundred feet behind me, was on us in an instant.
I didn’t have one second to protect my family… not even an instant to lay a comforting hand on my oldest son who sat in his wheelchair next to me. Just BOOM!
Welcome to Burlington’s waterfront air show 2006.
For the past couple of weeks the messages against the air show have been multiplying across a number of neighborhood forums. This is a great use of Front Porch Forum. Other members have responded in support of the air show. Most of the comments break down along predictable lines… anti-war = anti-air show and vice versa.
Perhaps the growing number of people against the Iraq war who find the air show objectionable, and therefore wish it canceled, miss an opportunity. I still shake when I remember that instant… I had no idea what was happening, only that some terribly violent power was exploding over my children. I was powerless.
So, while my family was in no real danger, this facsimile of modern warfare in the homeland was a deep-felt reminder of what the U.S. military is doing to people in Iraq (and elsewhere) for longer than our involvement in WWII. My wife and I were able to comfort our kids as they all sobbed, terrified, with “it’s only the air show.” What do parents say in real war zones to their surviving children?
Thus the opportunity. Don’t protest the imitation; rather, use it to protest the real thing. While the military jets streak across the waterfront next summer, excite the local population to imagine that this isn’t a patriotic celebration of our might… instead, use it as a sobering moment of solidarity with humans caught up in war.
Imagine Burlington under attack. Imagine missiles from those jets slamming into the hospital, the water treatment plant, the power plant… bombs dropping on neighborhoods, schools, bridges. Those are our jets after all. Our guns (made in Burlington), our neighbors and relatives in uniform. Only seems fair that we all get an annual reminder of what we’re visiting on other communities half-way around the world.
At one point in my past, I led a 20-year-old trade association of New England utilities with about 30 employees. We took pride in the 100 or so letters we received each year from members who took the time to tell us how pleased they were with our work.
So I’m tickled pink (to channel my mother) that shiny new and relatively tiny Front Porch Forum hears from it’s happy members in droves. Here are three unsolicited comments received just this evening:
Thanks for creating such a great local resource – we really love getting our Front Porch Forums in our mailboxes. -A.P. in The Quarry Neighborhood Forum
I think that you are providing a wonderful service. I don’t know very many neighbors at this point, so I am hoping this will open the door to new friendships. I will certainly encourage people who are not signed up to do so. -J.E. in Bay Creek Neighborhood Forum
Another success: I just received, delivered to my door, 3 packages of diapers for my son. A wonderful town member did not want to throw away unused diapers, so she posted on Front Porch Forum. I replied and she dropped them off! I will be thanking her with some of my homemade bread this week. What a great way to connect, reuse, recycle and overall develop a wonderful sense of community! -H.A. in Westford Neighborhood Forum
More such comments live on our Testimonials page.
This past week saw about 200 messages posted in the various neighborhood forums hosted by Front Porch Forum in and around Burlington, VT. People often ask for a concise summary of what members submit to their neighborhood forum… I’ll share some of the topics from the past week. If this works, perhaps I’ll repeat in the weeks ahead. In no particular order:
Human beings are social creatures. The current high degree of individual isolation in the United States appears to this layperson to be at an all-time high. The culprits? Who knows? Television, suburban sprawl, migration and job turnover, fear of strangers and crime… the internet?
So… here’s some good news. In many of the neighborhoods in which Front Porch Forum hosts a forum, people are throwing block parties in order to meet their neighbors (and reconnect with those they already know). In most cases, the neighborhood forum was both the catalyst to gather and the means to issue the invitation. In others, people are using their forum to invite a broader swath of the neighborhood than just the folks they know.
One forum member in the Old North End challenged her neighbors:
I appreciate reading everyone’s experience and stories on how to solve the recycling problem and crime. However, I think one of the long term solutions is to stop being reactive and start having discussions about how to raise the social capital of this neighborhood. Can we start talking about events, social activities, neighborly gestures and other positive things we can start doing to benefit the neighborhood?
After ten days and many good responses, she wrote again to the neighborhood:
Hi – Thanks to everyone who responded to my call for social capital building. To start us off, I would like to invite everyone in the ONE Central Forum to my place on Sunday from 1-4 pm for dessert and coffee. If you’d like to bring something, that would be great… but not necessary.
Other recent examples occurred in: Hinesburg, Richmond, South Burlington, Charlotte, and neighborhoods in Burlington: Birchcliff, Appletree Point, Staniford, and many in the Five Sisters.
Rob Filitor, an AmeriCorps State Volunteer for Champlain Housing Trust, had an idea… help people to give some community service on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to benefit their own neighborhood, or another one nearby. So he approached Front Porch Forum and we worked out a couple options. If you’re local to Chittenden County, Vermont, consider this:
1. People ask how to make their neighborhood forum successful… it’s straight forward. Tell your neighbors about it and ask them to sign up and use it! Several Front Porch Forum members will be fanning out across their own neighborhoods and towns to distribute flyers door-to-door on or around MLK Day (Jan. 15). You can do this in your area too! Members can download a neighborhood-specific flyer at http://frontporchforum.com… click the Pitch In link.
2. A group of AmeriCorps State Volunteerss will be walking across downtown Burlington and the Old North End distributing FPF flyers door-to-door, and they’re looking for other folks to join them on this national day of community service. If you’re interested, please RSVP to Rob Filitor (rmfilitor_AT_gmail_DOT_com) by Jan. 13. They will meet at Radio Bean on N. Winooski Ave. at Pearl St. in Burlington on Jan. 15 at noon.
Since Rob’s notion, I’ve heard more tales today:
3. The dean of Rock Point School is lining up high school students to distribute flyers across the New North End of Burlington on or around MLK Day… that’s thousands of households!
4. A member spoke to a group of retirees at the Charlotte Senior Center yesterday about Front Porch Forum and was surprised by the enthusiastic response… this use of the internet appeals to more than just the young and tech savvy apparently.
5. The superintendent of a local school district told me she plans to hand deliver copies of a local newspaper story about Front Porch Forum to the houses in her neighborhood next week when she walks her pooch each morning.
And there’s more that I never hear about… at least not directly. I got a call from a nearby Post Office reporting that Front Porch Forum flyers were showing up in mailboxes… that’s a no no (unless each piece has postage affixed). Not sure who did that. And a friend reported getting a flyer on her windshield on the other side of the county… wasn’t me. Wow! This is getting downright contagious. Thanks to the dozens (hundreds?) of local folks who are spreading the word… let’s keep it rolling! The people who join, the more valuable the service becomes for everyone.
Cathy Resmer writes today on 802 Online about one hopeful prediction for a resurgence of local news and community newspapers in 2007. She quotes a Seattle Times writer:
The story of the death of the Valley Daily News is that it blew it when it combined with its partner, the Bellevue Journal-American, into one amorphous, suburban blob.
Small is beautiful, eh? She shares the Times guy’s opinion about the value of local news, but wonders about the medium:
I do, however, see more and more people signing up for the Front Porch Forum service. I just recommended it to someone today. It’s not a newspaper, but it’s a great way to share local information. For example, yesterday my forum included an item from the Winooski City Engineer, explaining the water leak that’s developed on my street. I don’t know how else the city would have communicated that to me, other than sending out an email. The Free Press wouldn’t have covered it in the same way.
Of course, FPF in no way replaces good investigative journalism, but at least it helps neighbors communicate. I don’t know why the city hasn’t come up with a service like this on its own. It seems like a no-brainer.
Indeed, we’re seeing more local officials using Front Porch Forum to share news with their citizens, like the good souls in Winooski. And rarely do our postings resemble citizen journalism. Front Porch Forum helps neighbors connect and foster community within neighborhoods.
Weekly and monthly community newspapers are sharing neighbor-helping-neighbor stories emanating from Front Porch Forum lately. The Essex Reporter, Charlotte News, Shelburne News and North Avenue News each ran features in December. More coming in January.
So much online space is whacked… strange people doing strange things… wonder around MySpace and soak it up. Even the relatively mainstream sites often sound shrill… spend an hour reading the comments section of some of the political blogs out there. Then there’s the manufactured hipness of most commercial sites.
So what’s a grown up to do? Many in our beta city are finding Front Porch Forum and breathing a sigh of relief. With participation in each neighborhood forum limited to nearby residents (within a few hundred households) and each message automatically labeled with name and address, people know to be on their best behavior. An exchange this week in one of our urban forums demonstrates…
A local real estate agent asked “why do we tolerate the theft of shopping carts by people who use them to collect refundable bottles and cans out of our recycling bins?” A few replies to the neighborhood forum built a rejoinder around “hey, give these folks a break; we should be helping them out not making them out to be criminals.”
At this point, in other online venues, one could almost hear folks gassing up their flame throwers, preparing for the inevitable nasty exchange. Not here. The real estate agent responded civilly and expanded on his original point… “why is it okay to steal shopping carts? We’d have a different reaction if these folks were stealing cars to collect bottles and cans, or your kid’s little red wagon.”
Now, when these previously-unknown-to-each-other neighbors meet while walking their dogs or shoveling snow (if it ever returns!), they’ll hopefully be able to continue this mostly civil and constructive discussion, or launch a new one… building community with those living nearby. Neighborhood!
I studied engineering in school and therefore never had time for Philosophy 101, so grant me license to roam occasionally…
As most of us chug through our stress-filled days focused on the next several “to do”s on the list, tragedy hangs nearby, waiting to pay a visit. The oncoming car crossing the centerline, the phone call in the middle of the middle of the night. Sometimes, thankfully, it retreats before doing its worst, like the story below from one of our neighborhood forums in Burlington yesterday:
Thank you to all our new friends on Scarff Ave for their concern for our 15-month-old son who suffered a very high fever over the weekend. He is recovering, but still under the weather. We took him to the hospital on Sunday night after his fever spiked from 101.3 to a whopping 106.7 in just over an hour. After numerous tests the Drs could not pinpoint a source of the fever – no infections – but did discover that he was severly dehydrated. We had been giving him plenty of water and a little fruit juice… The important thing is to drink the right kinds of fluids – namely Pedialyte or another electrolyte drink (not Gatorade). Our son is still running a low-grade fever and today broke out in a rash, which we were told to expect. He is being closely monitored, but for now the source of his incredibly high fever remains a mystery.
I wanted to share our experience to help other parents whose little ones might go through the same thing. Thanks again for all of the well wishes.
As a father of similar-age kids… wow. My heart goes out to this young family. And what a wonderful response from these parents… to be able to turn to new neighbors for support, and then, with their little trooper still showing symptoms, to share their story as a lesson so that others may avoid the same hardship. That’s great.
I’ve talked with hundreds of people in casual conversation about Front Porch Forum over the past many months. One of the most common comments goes a little something like this…
“I’m chagrined to admit it, but out of our entire neighborhood I only know the couple next door… and I’ve lived here for TEN years!”
It’s fascinating to watch the 130 neighborhood forums that we’re hosting across metro-Burlington… urban vs. suburban vs. rural; renter vs. owner-occupied; low vs. middle vs. high income, etc. We’re seeing successful adoption of the service across many of these different types of communities. It seems fairly universal that people want to connect with the people who live around them and attach to the neighborhood grapevine.
Kevin Harris posted the following in his blog today from the UK:
A friend was telling me today about a conversation with a neighbour, who she reckoned has lived in her street for well over ten years. The question she was asked was something like ‘have you seen so-and-so over the road? I haven’t seen her for a while.’ The lady in question had died some three years previously, unbeknown to the questioner.
For my friend, who grew up in a rural area, a bit of adjustment was necessary, because this couldn’t have happened in her village. But she lives now in a northern English city. I’m not surprised and probably most people who think about neighbourliness in contemporary society wouldn’t be surprised, which suggests that this sort of disconnection between neighbours is far from exceptional.
I don’t know how the United States and England compare along these lines, but it seems to me that this kind of thing happens in all sorts of settings in this country these days, at least here in Vermont, where many rural residents are urban/suburban transplants, not multi-generational farmers.
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more