The Mad Hatters

Our neighborhood is a pretty active community. Living in an urban area, we don’t have a lot of stay at home moms or dads. The demographics have always leaned towards older retired folks or couples without children. The DC schooling situation exacerbates the whole issue of trying to get a lot of families to move into the District.

We are lucky enough to live among a lot of people who invest time into our neighborhood. There is an amazing civic association and we never have a shortage of people announcing how things could be better.

At the core is our list serve. This is one item that proves some people have too much time on their hands. (As if blogs didn’t prove the very same thing.) While some of the messages such as crime or community issues are worthwhile, there are always a number each week indicating that the recycling wasn’t picked up. People, talk to someone who cares.

We also have a number of committees and special interest groups. I tragically had signed up to be block captain. That meant when special announcements needed to be distributed to everyone on the street, I had to print them out and deliver them. You can only imagine how long that lasted.

So now I sit on the newsletter folding group and the yard sale group. Neither job consists of devoting more than 3 hours a year to help promote neighborhood camaraderie. Who says I’m not a man for others.

The strangest group in our area is the Orange Hat Patrol. Every Thursday at 7:30 PM, these folks walk down one of our major retail streets to show criminals we have a neighborhood watch program. OK folks, I’m thinking that delinquents may learn the whole routine-thing and just avoid the Thursday evening crime spree.

Surprisingly, I did not join this group either. Yes, a major reason is that Thursday night TV is pretty darn important, but mostly because orange is a really unflattering color for me. (Let’s not even talk about how matted down my hair would be with all I put in it.)

So here’s the funniest thing, DC just announced a Blue Hat Patrol. Unlike the Orange Hatters, the Blue Hat Patrol will conduct indoor walks of apartment buildings in the area to spot safety and cleanliness issues.

My favorite line of the whole article... “We call them Blue Hat Patrols because we wanted to distinguish this group from the Orange Hat Patrol Groups,” says Yvonne Smith, Community Outreach Coordinator, PSA 411.

Wow! There are some f*cking brilliant people out there. And these are the ones protecting us.