We have neighbours on either side of us and they're as different as night and day. But, as the old saying goes, you can't pick your neighbours. One family has lived in their house for 31 years. We've known their children all their lives, and they're now young adults. The other neighbour moved in as a second-buyer for the house, around 25 years ago and we're as familiar with their children as with the other. Our house was the last built on the street, and we moved into it 29 years ago.

One neighbour takes very good care of their property, just as we do. The other neglects it completely and the place looks like an neglected, overgrown, abandoned lot. You can guess, which of the two families is friendly and which not. The neighbour who is slothful will cross the street rather than have to meet up with another neighbour; acknowledgement and communication is so distasteful to him.

One of the neighbours is generous and given to long conversations, the other wouldn't lend someone else a garden implement that cost a dollar, not that he'd use any such contraption. There are other neighbours on the street living close by and further along whom we've known for decades and relations with them are always open and friendly. Some among them are our very good and valued friends. Of the entire street of various families about 2 percent of residents ever venture into the forest just beyond the street we live on.

It's strange how people are, what their values happen to be, the manner of their personalities and how they interact with their environment and those who live among them. I used to regularly act as a volunteer canvasser for years for the street, going door to door for any number of charitable medical causes, among them cancer, diabetes, arthritis, the blind, and others. And doing so really reveals the inner character of people. Some would confess that dear ones died of cancer and would never donate as much as a dollar.

Others made it their business to regularly donate to all charitable causes because they saw the value in helping others, in funding research, as an integral part of being a member of a community. As I became older, nearing my 75th birthday I kept telling myself I was ready to shelve such volunteering, someone else could take it up, I'd had enough. But what convinced me that I really had had enough was when that socially-averse neighbour was so rude and insulting the last time I canvassed that I never returned to such volunteering again.

Yes, I know, my fault for taking such things so personally. When we are out on forest trails in the ravine if we happen to come across others we don't know, it is automatic to casually acknowledge another person's presence as you pass. On the rare occasion, some people will simply ignore the overture and continue on their way. It always leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but I suppose it shouldn't. It's their perfect right not to want to be approached by a stranger with a civil greeting.

When we were out yesterday morning with Jackie and Jillie we happened to come across a few people and their dogs whom we'd never before seen. Most people, when they come across others will smile a greeting and move on. And so it was with these people. Some like to stop briefly and exchange pleasantries, and we're always happy to oblige. Or to give directions when they're asked of us when others, unfamiliar with the terrain, want information helpful to them.

Perhaps it's a given that people who prefer to shy away from others are unhappy people, dissatisfied with life and their place in the scheme of things. But not necessarily. Sociopaths rarely much care what others think or feel and they regard no obligation to present themselves as civil. Simply put, yet another manifestation of the amplitude of differences between people.