If we keep the old good and release it into the new now, then we’re in business.

I remember when nobody locked their doors. There was no need to. It was just a given, and we could turn our attention elsewhere.

Can we get that old good back?

Naïve me, I say yes.

I am a realist, and I know enough about what’s going on and the way things are to feel the cold shower of reality.

But I can dry off, choose the clothes to wear, and step out washed clean into the wide world.

I’m still sufficiently mobile that I can go here and there. My secret plan is to talk to anybody everybody in common cause. Food, the weather.

Jokes are also good. There are enough non-mean-spirited sources of humor to share a laugh. People who can laugh together, or even just chuckle, have formed and exercised a bond. They have diminished the things that divide them.

“Let me buy you a drink.”

“I’ll fight you to the death, but if you’re buying…”

People who drink together are farther from the center of their discontent. The perspective changes, the video cam draws back and that earlier focus looks smaller.

Of course the alcohol helps if it’s in the drink.

And then you invite your new acquaintance companion friend to dinner. “Look over the menu, choose what you like. I’m paying. We can split the dessert, and I’ll even let you pay the tip if you insist so we can feel we’re sharing the bill.

“And what were we arguing about?”

We can still disagree on some things. We can process the atmosphere differently, but we share the same air.

What we once thought of as “fightin’ words,” can still have their sting, but are less likely to kill, the poison diluted by the alcohol we’ve drunk together.

We even shook hands briefly as we paid for drinks and dinner, and then the token “Next time.”

Suddenly we realize we’re neighbors.

I look forward to the good of the good old days when, maybe, we won’t lock our doors.