Not in the right hood?

Are you member in a facebook group? Probably. If not, you’re not missing anything. People love fb groups for different reasons. I’m member in a cycling, a camping, a group from my old home town, a group of Germans in California and a group from school. I see the advantages of these groups. It’s easy to be informed quickly about stuff that’s going on, about where and when to meet for a ride or what to bring to an event. That is, if people check their facebook on a regular basis. Well, I swear, they do. I do, too, which I’m not too proud of, because I’m setting a bad example for my kids and it’s often a waste of time. You see a lot of crap, you actually don’t want to see or read about at all. I know, I don’t have to, no one forces me, but if you do check facebook, and I probably do that at least twice a day, you do, you will. And you can also read a lot of interesting, random stories, you wouldn’t know about without facebook. I actually read a lot of news on fb and I love to see what my friends in Germany and the rest of the world are up to. Well, there’s always a pro and a con side. Anyway, I’m on that school group where  I hardly post anything, but it is informative and people are able to get help and advice from lots of people in the same boat briefly and swiftly. Yesterday I stumbled over this post from one mom. She was wondering if other people have noticed the couch sitting at the intersection next to our school, too. She thinks it looks ghetto and would bring down the neighborhood. She asked people to email  the City of San Jose, so the couch will be picked up soon. When I read this post, I had to grin from ear to ear because: I noticed the couch – a while ago.  I saw it sitting there, quietly and peacefully next to the bench of a bus stop.  Left behind in front of a small apartment complex, where people don’t have a backyard and spend a lot of their evenings sitting in front of the building. When I saw it, my first thought was: Cool! A bit of comfort for the people waiting for the bus, a place to hang out and chat after work for the people who live there. (I have to admit the couch was a bit shabby, but I’ve seen worse stuff sitting on the curb for sale.) I had to think of my old neighborhood in Cologne, too, where people would have put the couch to use right away, sit on it, chat on it or even carry it over to the next park to sit on it there. But, this is Ehrenfeld, Cologne. A bit quirky, artsy and hip area close to downtown Cologne. It’s a whole different world. I miss that world where people are less narrow-minded, less concerned about the looks of a street and about real estate values. Maybe I’m in the wrong hood after all?