What a Small World

We live near a river, which is sort of the dividing line between our "neighborhood" and the others. We don't really drive toward the river, and the houses over the river are also over a large hill, and are too far away for the kids to walk to, etc.

Our road ends abruptly as you go in the opposite direction, so we think of our "neighborhood" as anyone between our house and the end of the road, or anyone you can see from our house. So, all told, there are 10 houses in the neighborhood including ours. Mapblast says that's within 1.1 miles.

Having said that, we know everyone who lives in all of these houses, and who owns the land that no houses occupy. Some people we've only met once, when they were driving by and introducing themselves shortly after we moved in, others (like Bubba) we know all too well. Some we just met when Pecos got away a few weeks ago.

Except for one. Their house sits back from the road, in some trees. I actually forgot it was there until yesterday.

I was at school. Since it was my vacation, I decided to go to school and have lunch with my kids (which was a blast, I highly recommend it). While I was saying goodbye to L, there was a man waiting for me to finish. When I did, he introduced himself and asked if I lived on XXX road. I said I did (well, not XXX, that sounds like a red light district!), and he introduced himself as a teacher at the school. He knew me from a function I attended as the parent of a child with autism, but he had not put that together with the neighbor thing. He then told me that his father lived around the corner. Sure, I know him, I wave to him every day when I leave for work and come home! He has a big ol' farm, and some of his land extends to behind mine.

Small world. Especially here!

I think I now know ALL of my neighbors.