Welcome to My Mayberry

My Mayberry is the anonymous name for the city where my wife Susan and I currently live in the beautiful State of Maine.  Like most cities and towns in America these days, it's a far cry from the relationally-sound Mayberry of old.   The original  Mayberry as you may recall, was the fictional community setting for two television sitcoms in the 1960's; The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry R.F.D.  It was a small, rural community which is remembered as much for its slow-paced life as it was for the unique characters that inhabited it.  Everyone in Mayberry knew each other and more importantly, watched out for one another.

During the past 12 years, I've met literally a couple hundred people who are at or near the end of themselves due to serious illness, staring mortality in the face, and scrambling to strengthen their community ties during a time of crisis.  Regardless of whether they have few social connections or many, few people here in Southern Maine (and America) know the people in closest proximity to them (i.e. their neighbors).

These days, we get to know the neighbors through the blinds, forming our assessments from afar.  And then one day, we notice a wheel chair ramp being built on the house of the (nameless) peeps that we've lived next door to for the past dozen years.  We're saddened and debilitated, wanting to help, but not quite sure how to begin that dialog.  Conversely, the owners of the wheelchair ramp now need real help with their day-to-day care needs, but feel that they can't possibly ask for help from folks that they've never taken the time to connect with, resulting in what I refer to as a community stalemate.

So what does a family who is stricken by serious illness, with few meaningful ties to their immediatet neighborhood do in a time of crisis?  They do what you and I would do in the same situation.  They look first to their extended social network - peeps who live within driving distance (not necessarily close by),  and increasingly, they look to government and/or insurance funded programs for help. 

The impetus for starting a blog entitled My Mayberry, is to dispel some of the notions regarding eHope, the organization which I founded 5 years ago, and to increase the collective awareness of our increasing degree of social isolation that we are all facing.  This will not simply be a collection of vague "studies show" references which are all too prevalent on the internet.  I will do my best to lay out a case containing quantifiable sociological research pointing to a profound shift in community connectedness during the past 4 decades, along with anthropological, and neuroscientific data which point to our biological need for meaningful connection with other human beings, and its impact on human mortality.

I will relate this research data whenever possible, to my personal experiences living here in My Mayberry, a city of approx. 20,000, and also by sharing my experiential walk in the facilitation of 70 caregiving communities during the past 5 years.  

"If you want to go fast, go alone.

If you want to go far, go together."
           ~ African Proverb ~