Our street and its inhabitants, the people who live here, are steadily undergoing an amazing change. A change that has taken time to present itself, but has, inexorably, without our full realization while it was happening. It was so stable at one time in the sense that people who owned houses on the street seemed to my casual eye, prepared to stay. Oh, some houses seemed in particular susceptible to their owners, for one reason or another, moving on. And those houses, few in number, just kept changing owners for some reason beyond understanding.

When we first moved to our present home on this street, our three children already well on in their 30s and established in their own homes -- the very day we moved in, a new neighbour living directly across from us, came over to introduce himself and welcome us as newcomers. We soon became familiar with that family, felt grateful for their friendship and were dismayed when about six years later they informed us they were moving with their two young sons to Texas. They were all born in Canada, and as blacks, we said, why would they move to the United States, with its constant social conflicts between black and white? An opportunity to get ahead in his profession, a job offer he couldn't refuse. And they left.

In their place a couple with two young sons, one of whom was born in that house now live, aloof from their neighbours; she Canadian-born, he of Egyptian heritage and like the previous owners Christmas decorations came up early in December to join the colourful medley most of the street bedecked itself with.

Another couple, much older than we were when we had our first child, who treated their old black Labrador Retriever before the birth of that child as a child itself, added to the atmosphere of 'family' that prevailed on the street. And then they too moved, across country to British Columbia where his profession also dictated that he follow opportunities that beckoned. We kept in touch through the Internet for awhile, and like our neighbour who moved to Texas, there was a subsequent visit when they found themselves back in town, and then gradually, we lost touch.

But these disparate sundering of neighbourly relations have increased markedly as people for their own perfectly logical reasons decide to sell their homes and move on elsewhere; children having left, the house too large for the remaining parents; moving to be closer to where children live; moving because of job assignments elsewhere; selling because of marriage dissolution. And because new people move in, are introduced to those who have been there longer, new friendships are sometimes forged, sometimes not, as newer, younger residents are remote in personality and busy lifestyles seem to make them indifferent to relations with neighbours.

There are some houses on the street that have now been in the hands of as many as six different householders. While other houses remain with their original owners, grown comfortable in their homes and unwilling to leave, since why should they, after all? But it is slowly becoming a different street in general character; where once we knew pretty much everyone, even those who, though original owners, were never interested in acknowledging their next-door neighbours, we never quite know who belongs where, increasingly.

And with that distance in neighbourliness comfort, there is a sad sense of loss of community.