Some people tend to be intrusively friendly and others so insular they appear socially hostile. All communities have a mix of people ranging from one extreme to the other, while most people rank somewhere in between, in character. Up until about five years ago I got to know which of my neighbours fell into such sometimes-distinct and sometimes-blurred categories. Although I truly hated doing it, I always assented when contacted by charitable groups to help them in their fund-raising efforts. They would deliver a canvass kit and I would take it, in the designated month, door-to-door in my neighbourhood, inviting donations for the cause, and writing out tax-deductible receipts.

I did this for many decades, not only on the street where we now live, but in previous areas where we lived, as well. Raising funds for causes I believed needed contributions from societal members at large; the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Canadian Diabetes Association, Canadian Cancer Society, Heart and Stroke Society, the Arthritis Society, you name it, I just felt it my personal responsibility to canvass for them. In this way getting to know people from a perspective that is fairly telling about values and personal characteristics. People became accustomed to seeing me, many expressing their astonishment that "it's that time of year, already?!".

Yesterday when we were heading uphill on the last ascent out of the ravine and onto the street where we live, we came across a large old black Labrador being walked by a young man. As always, we greeted the young man and fell to talking as we were hauling ourselves uphill. The Labrador was as black as could be, and had bright red eyes. We've seen blue, green, brown and black eyes on various dogs, sometimes even dogs with one blue, one green eye, but never before red eyes. Unnatural, and in all likelihood a symptom of something medically wrong with the dog. Twelve years old, the young man said. As we turned into the street we realized we knew both the young man and the dog, in the slightest of ways. I knew his mother vaguely, knew her name, Bridgette. A young French-Canadian she was married to a much older Anglophone; when the children were pre-teens their parents separated. Over the years, I'd greeted Bridgette in passing, noticed on several occasions a large black dog on her property, as well as a succession of age-appropriate suitors. This was like a phantom-dog, rarely seen, but since their property backs directly onto the ravine with ready access, explicable.

We'd come across the children briefly through the years, passing a 'hello'. But would never have been able to link this young adult with the children growing up over the years, an amazing transition through years that flew by. The young man is in his second year of university: economics, a very pleasant young man. It is just so strange that one knows some neighbours intimately and others barely at all, despite years of living in fairly close proximity. When Bridgette had first moved to the neighbourhood I had introduced myself to her, and her husband initially, then saw them only when I'd knock on the door, canvass kit in hand.

On the other hand, when we come across people we know from constant exposure while walking daily in the ravine, often a social bond results, whether or not they have dogs they walk in the forest. Yesterday we came across a number of people we've become familiar with over the years of occasional meetings while on our walks. There's a certain social affection one feels for people such as those we're familiar with, and the kind of intimate familial and health and values-driven knowledge exchanged between us. Which extends to concerns over the well-being of those whom we realize we haven't seen of late, and which others of our ravine companions can fill in the details for.