Writing with Rox WEEKLY—National Night Out Crashers/Running With Neighbors

When I was growing up in the 70s in LA, national night out happened every night. You just went outside and voila, everyone was out. Of course this was LA and in fact most people were out, in more ways than one, not to mention the weather, always out at 70, give or take a few degrees. On any given night, there we'd be, engulfed in jasmine and citrus trees, running with the wind. As the elders buzzed along on the upper plane doing their grownup things with cars or hammers or in the kitchen or on the phone, we roared in and out of our houses, running in packs, in costume, in total surrender, as we dove deeply into the only moment there only ever is during childhood: the blissful now. Skateboarding down Holmby Avenue, playing baseball in the street, or Star Wars on the grass, all sense of time lost until inevitably the call would come for dinner. And for those whose call never came on any given day, that was your day in the sun. You'd go eat over somewhere else, maybe even sleep over. Night after night, we hoped it would never ever end.

Last night was the first time I formally partook in NNO, which I consider a huge deal for an introvert like myself, though I did have my extroverted son along with me, which helped a great deal and was the real impetus for my venturing out. After all, we live in a condo, where the closet thing we come to NNO is in passing in the garage or at the annual board meeting at Dunn Brothers in December, though I've been here almost four years and we've yet to introduce ourselves.  In any case, Jude and I braved the streets, headed around the block to the neighboring party we've been invited to two years in a row, but for whatever reason, never made it. But this year, darn it, we would show up. After all, I had Jude's childhood to think about, which means his childhood has to be the exact same as mine! When life was good! And suddenly, quite urgently, I was determined that on this NNO Jude would get out there and find some kids to run around with. 

It took some doing. Why are we going there, Mama? 
Because we are! 
But why? 
Because there'll be kids! 
Where is it? I don't see anybody...
I don't know! Let's keep walking! 


In typical Ma fashion, we ended up at the wrong party. 


In my thirties,  I rebelled against NNO, this seemingly satirical vision of getting people to make eye contact and actually talk to each other. Are you even serious? It seemed to me, at the time, the live version of FaceBook, where you go try people out who live near you and decide if you want to befriend them because having that happen spontaneously or organically was just too much pressure for our rapidly failing social abilities. Of course this was before Facebook, at least I think it was, but still, I wasn't going to partake in such a contrived Hallmark type event when it was easier to stay at home and complain about the end of our social abilities. 

Now, in my forties, I still find it satirical or at least on the scary side, that we have to create structures in order to introduce ourselves to one another, let alone feel un-self-consicous, while standing in the middle of the street,  or drinking beer in your neighbor's driveway, pointing out to one another which house and which kid is ours. I mean, why don't we then stop each other in the local market and exchange pleasantries? Why don't we, while out walking the dog or riding the bike, make the same sort of small to medium talk that we save for just one night a year? Are we so poor at conversing that we have to save it up for one night only? You see what I'm saying. 

As Jude and I stood estranged from this thriving block party, layered in social circles, oozing good times,  feeling like aliens or homeless intruders or at the very least like those Halloween kids who come to the really rich houses for the good candy, I thought about steering us toward home. People seemed to notice us, but not recognizing us, the looks were more like those you might see while you are cutting in line or, well, crashing a party. Lucky for us, when I couldn't look or feel any more self conscious,  a man around my age, perhaps a bit older, welcomed us into the driveway. "Hey!" I said, introducing us. "We're from the condos over there... is this the block that Janet lives on?" The man looked around, shrugged his shoulders and said, "No, no Janet on this block that I know of. But you're welcome to stay."

"Oh, really? Wow, thanks. That's so sweet of you..." I started to go into my story about Janet, this being our first year out, etc, and before long I was getting into my life story, and one by one, the rest of the neighbors were coming my way, hands outstretched. 

Of course, long before that, almost immediately, Jude was out and running in packs with the boys. What did it matter to him who we knew anyway? There were boys running with swords and sticks shooting things at each other, charging out into the night with capes and superpowers. It was dusk in the summertime, ice cream was chilling in the cooler, and this was his childhood.

It was good times.

WRITE WITH ME? How was your NNO? What sort of pack did you run with as a kid? Or... whatever else you got!