The study consisted of asking 10,000 people from all 50 states which kind acts they would do for their neighbors. The results found that Tennessee residents ranked second in the study in regard to being the kindest neighbors in America.
*****
That's been my experience for sure. Maybe not with the things in the linked article, but in other ways.
When I lived in California the last few years, I didn't even know my neighbor's names and didn't care to get to know them.
Here, not only do I know the nearest ones, but we'll go out of our way to help each other if we see a need.
One of the first instances of this I saw was right after we first moved out here. We had a big hickory blow down during a hell of a windstorm and I was cutting it up for firewood. The branches weren't that big of a deal but once I got to the trunk, I was having a hard time splitting it with a maul and wedges and was whining and sniveling about it on this blog.
One of my readers who comments as waitingForTheStorm and lives in Macon County, shot me an email volunteering his labor and the use of his splitter to help out. I hadn't even met the guy at that point. I didn't take him up on it, going down and buying my own splitter instead, but I thought it was very unusual that he'd offer.
Turns out that attitude isn't at all unusual for these parts.
I don't have a garage or even an overhead cover for my vehicles, and a while back we got an alert on the weather radio about storms with large hail. I started to grab some moving blankets to protect my windshields, but noticed the young man working on his property next door, so I went over and asked if I could nose my vehicles into his pretty full pole barn for an hour or two instead. "Hell yeah, you can," Tyler says. "Hold on a second." Then he went over and moved a tractor out, then hooked up his bush hog and pulled it out too, telling me that a little hail wouldn't hurt them and to just pull my vehicles in all the way.
My nearest neighbors across the road: It's the husband and wife and her mother Miss Katherine who is something like 92 years old. Tim works out of state and is gone quite a bit during the warm months, and Kathy works out of town, leaving Miss Katherine alone during the day 4-5 days a week. Well, naturally they're concerned about leaving her alone but they have to work, so they asked if I'd check up on her and of course I agreed. No big deal, she's in good shape physically and sharp as a tack mentally, but it gives everybody there a measure of comfort knowing somebody's close by just in case.
Every morning at 9 o'clock on the days she's alone, I call over to check on and shoot the shit with her for a few minutes, the Life Alert people have our number, and I have access to a key to their house in case the FD or paramedics need to get in.
Anything I have that they need, it's theirs for the asking and it goes both ways. I swear, Tim's used my cargo trailer more than I have. They've given me rides down to our mechanic's shop to drop off and pick up vehicles, and I've done the same for them. When their garden comes in, we've got fresh vegetables.
We don't have a storm shelter or basement in our house, but anytime we get a strong storm with the possibility of tornadoes, we can count on a call to come over and sit with them in their basement until it passes, and we've taken them up on it a few times. They don't even object to me bringing that asshole dog Jack with us.
It's the little things, too. I was sitting here just a couple days ago and Kathy called Lisa. "Tell that old man of yours to get on over here if you'uns wants a loaf of this bread I just took out of the oven." I was over there in a flash.
The thing is, we're not what most people think of as friends. We're friendly towards each other and will do whatever we can to help out, but we don't visit back and forth for the most part. I may go over and trash talk the government with Tim maybe once every couple weeks for an hour or so and that's about it as far as social interactions go, but we all know we can count on each other if the need arises.
