LETTERS: HOMETOWN: NEIGHBOR IS MISSED

To the editor:

There are advantages in living in your hometown. No matter where you go, be it the grocery store, the mall, a ballgame or out to eat, you will see someone you have known a long time: a teacher, a grade-school friend, an aunt, a neighbor, a co-worker or your minister.

The same is true about living in the same neighborhood for a long, long time. You know all your neighbors. You watch their children grow, start school, start dating and get married. Then you watch their grandchildren and start buying their Girl Scout cookies and their chili-supper tickets.

Most of the people in my neighborhood have lived here a long time. It's the kind of neighborhood where neighbors are truly neighbors, where garden produce is shared, a lawn is mowed or a driveway is shoveled. It's where food is brought in when someone is too ill to cook, and where kids share rides to school, a loaf of bread or gallon of milk is picked up for you, or a newspaper is brought from the end of your driveway and placed at your door.

It's the kind of neighborhood where we play together, laugh together, work together and where, once again, we mourn together. A very well-loved and respected neighbor died last Friday. We will all miss him.

SUE ROUSSEL

Cape Girardeau