My Neighborhood: 'Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious'

TAPPING MAPLE TREES: A family posed for this photograph 100 years ago.

(This week, we welcome back veteran communicator Terry Gallagher.)

On our block, one family used to be in charge of the Easter egg hunt. Another family offered a hot-dog supper on Halloween right before the kids went out begging. Someone else always had a party the week before Christmas, and another one marks the end of summer. As for us, we’ve been putting on the New Year’s Eve soup-a-thon for more than 20 years. No invitations, just show up around dinner time. Kids welcome. Nothing fancy. Lentil soup for the vegetarians, and corn chowder is very popular, too.

Some of those traditions are fading as a generation of kids goes off to college. But new traditions are emerging. Last year, a group of families tapped maple trees all around the block. You could see steam rising from a neighbor’s grill for three days straight one weekend in March as they evaporated sap down to syrup. No, it wasn’t quite like the photograph above, but you get the idea: American communities have been doing things like this, together, for a very long time.

We’ve never had a real block party, with the city permit and the barricades, but these other gatherings have built a very strong sense of community on our street. In his poem, “A Prayer for My Daughter,” W.B. Yeats hoped that she might live “where all’s accustomed, ceremonious.”

If we want lives rich with customs and ceremonies, we might want to start right in our own neighborhood, right on our own block.

Are there similar rituals in your neighborhood?

What are they?

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ABOUT TERRY GALLAGHER: After working more than 20 years in higher education, Terry Gallagher is exploring new ways to use media and messages to build stronger institutions and communities.  Most recently, he has joined the board and helped launch communications efforts at the InterFaith Leadership Council of Metropolitan Detroit, a new group with a long history.