My neighborhood is quiet.  Even with a bar down the street, it's very quiet.  Our real estate agent had encouraged us to talk to neighbors back when we were looking at prospective houses and one of our future neighbors said he liked the neighborhood because it's in the middle of everything, yet still quiet, because no one knows about it, so people only come here if they live here. 

After my kids, I'm the biggest defender of my neighborhood.  We try to be good neighbors.  We clear the lawn of the kids' toys after the day is done, try to keep the grass mowed, chicken sit for our neighbors and bring over cookies at Christmas.  We're pleasant to each other.  We wave to each other as we come and go and chat with each other over the fence. 

I have zero tolerance for bad behavior, the kind of behavior that affects quality of life.  When I heard an altercation between acquaintances of a neighbor across the street, an altercation that involved more profanity than not, I went outside to see what was going on.  When I feared the instigator of the yelling match was going to punch the woman he was verbally abusing, I ran inside to find my cell phone to call the police.  And then when the man left the group and headed towards the corner, stopped, turned around, dropped his pants and continued his profanity-laden tirade while making obscene gestures with his bare mid-section, I stormed across the street and confronted him. 

Loud enough for probably the whole neighborhood to hear, I yelled at him to pull his pants up.  Although I was livid, the comical part of the whole incident is that as the words flowed out of my mouth about pulling his pants up, how his behavior is unacceptable and so on, I remembered I was not talking to my toddler, but an adult.  So I followed up with an exacerbated, "And I shouldn't have to tell you this!  You should know better!"

I pointed to my house and glared back at him and said that was my home and this is my neighborhood and his behavior wasn't allowed where I live.  He interjected some sheepish repeats of "I'm sorry," but I left him with a hopefully very believable threat that if I ever hear him yelling at someone else, or even look like he was going to hit someone or expose himself, I'd call the cops. 

When I told Chris the story later, I don't think he was surprised that I had confronted the guy given that I feel passionate about a lot of things, including when people misbehave.  But it wasn't just the offensiveness of the man's actions that got my so riled up, it was the worry about the affect of his actions on my neighborhood.  I had to intervene, because I wasn't going to let my neighborhood become a place where people think they can act like that.  I wasn't going to let that become the new normal, which leads to apathy from neighbors who don't step in or don't call the police because, well, that kind of stuff happens a lot around here. 

It's remained quiet since that incident.  Oliver plays at his water table in the front yard and pushes himself on his tricycle up and down the sidewalk in front of our house.  Soren sits on a blanket and plays with his toys and Chris and I are out doing yard work or watering the plants.  We remain a presence in the neighborhood.