Last night we had a neighborhood potluck dinner, organized by our next-door neighbors. It was a bit chilly outside, but fun to go to something like this where you only have to walk five houses down to get there.

I like the idea of community in the neighborhood. I’m not very good at it, though. Mostly, I’m just not so good at being sociable. Let me clarify. It’s easy for me to be sociable around folks I already know, and it’s easy for me to carry on a conversation with people who are driving the conversation, but stick me with somebody as quiet as I am, and it gets uncomfortable pretty quickly. I’m still learning how to ask the right questions, stuff like that. But over all, it went OK last night. The folks are friendly.

My other observation about the neighborhood folks, though: they’re old. With the exception of our next-door neighbors, who are in their mid-40’s, everybody else there was retired. Many of them long-retired. One of them was telling me that he was recovering from a stroke, and then about his son (or was it a nephew?) that was also recovering from a stroke. “He was really young, too…” the guy told me; “only 60!” I felt very young right about then.

After about 90 minutes and far too much food, everybody wandered off back to their own homes. Laura held my hand and walked all the way back home by herself. She was pretty tired when she got back. But I’m sure it won’t be long until she’s running the whole way ahead of me. Now that makes me feel old.