I'm not knocking La Crosse, WI (more accurately, French Island), but we had pretty sorry luck in neighbour relations. On one side, the summer weekend evenings were spiced by the Four Letter Badmitten Olympics. On the other, a couple who couldn't wrap their brains around how anyone could find their beagle's 30+-minute barking jags annoying.
I figured that the lack of camaraderie was largely our karma: We tend to keep ourselves to ourselves, and my West Coast work schedule probably didn't help with those random encounters that cement those relationships bit by bit.
Grande-Digue has been rather different, pretty much from the get-go. The residential lots in these parts tend to run larger than the quarter-acre of our French Island subdivision. Yet, almost counter-intuitively, the bonds tend to run a lot stronger. Part of it is the Acadian nature of the place--generations of Poirers, Fougères, Bourgeoises, Legers, LeBlancs, Robichauds, Melansons, Gallants, Cormiers, et. al. growing up like an extended family. But apparently, not so tribal as to shun arrivistes like ourselves.
But even after three years and change, I'm still sometimes caught out by how tight-knit the place is. Today was one of those days. For instance, Post Canada left a delivery notice for a package that required a signature...which I promptly left at home. I rarely see the lady who takes care of late-afternoon customers, so I pulled out my driver's license to prove that I indeed matched the addressee on the pack. She waved it away with a smile: "I know who you are."
An hour or so later, the neighbours for whom we've been cat-/chicken-sitting stopped by with a thank-you gift from their weekend in Quebec. In the context of chatting about their travels, I casually mentioned that we're considering a jaunt to Newfoundland. Turns out that because we also mentioned it to another neighbour, it was already old news.
I should have known. In both cases.
And so, while the social media mavens obsess over the magic n-squared-minus-n-all-divided-by-two formula, it's wise to remember that the strength of connections trumps the number of nodes. At least when you're actually interested in making more than a superficial impression. That's the way most folks around here seem to want to roll. That's cool by me.
