As an army family, being “neighborly” can be something of an awkward situation.

It is no secret when a family moves in or out of the neighborhood. The massive amounts of flying cardboard and huge semi trucks loading up thousands of pounds of personal belongings kind of give it away.

Being neighborly on post is not an easy task. Most of the time, folks keep pretty much to themselves. I am sure it is because they (ok we) are all busy and the effort it takes to build a relationship when they are probably moving to a new duty station in the next 12 seconds is, well, a lot of work.

But we try to be good neighbors. We really do. Sometimes it is well received, other times they just eat our “Welcome to the neighborhood” chicken dinner and we never hear from them again. (And they may or may not keep the Tupperware containers we served it in.)

Here’s the deal: We don’t have to be in the army to be neighborly. Heck, we don’t even have to be neighborly to only those in our neighborhood.  [Read more…]