All in the neighborhood

We never see many trick or treaters at our house. The hills are steep, the lots are pretty big compared to contemporary subdivisions, the houses set back from the road, behind trees, the walkways to them are not always that well lit. Many of the houses are lived in by old professors who have been there for decades and don't have huge disposable incomes. Put it all together, and a kid has to work pretty hard to get to each unit of sugar. It's so much easier to hop in a car and go to Southern Village or Meadowmont, where it's cookie-cutter, Norman Rockwell dense.

This year was different. Trick or treating was a bit more of a fraught affair as people around the nation tried to carry on in a pandemic-friendly way. Benches and tables were put at the end of driveways with little bags of candy.

Remarkably, we had more trick or treaters than ever, about 20 of them. I think it's pretty much because people didn't take there kids to other neighborhoods. So I ended up meeting a number of people, including people I've seen around the lake in the summer. It was really nice. Perhaps this is another lesson in the unseen downsides in our metrics-driven, return-optimizing culture, in this case reflected in our children, who are well-tuned candy-seeking machines.

Although I will say I remember taking Natalie to Southern Village a decade or so ago and running into a couple of people I hadn't seen in decades, people I didn't even know were back in Chapel Hill.