This neighborhood is full of retirees for the most part... I would say that about 80% of the people who live here are retired, which makes their age somewhere in the 60s or 70s. It is possible that we have some couples in their 80s but I have not met them yet.
Most of the residents do their own yard maintenance but for the rest, they have hired different outside crews to come in... and on any given day of the week, including Sundays, you will see a pickup truck and a trailer carrying lawn mowing equipment parked on the side of the road.
Other than the noise associated with lawn care tasks, this neighborhood is relatively quiet and it is seldom that you see anyone outside unless they are doing something in the yard. So, it seems that staying inside the house is common practice in this neighborhood.
In contrast, when I was growing up in the 1950s, I too was in a community about 5 miles outside of any city; Alexandria to be exact. Our neighborhood was similar to the size of Highland Hills, and was called Wellington Heights. The neighborhood was full of couples with children and on any given day of the week, most of the children would be outside playing.
I remember that the parents got together every year at Christmas time and agreed to buy similar gifts so that all the children would have the same toys with which to plays. Of course, there were boy toys nd girl toys back then which would be frowned at today.
Back then, we had television sets and cartoons were broadcasted on Saturday morning, but we were outside playing. We did not have cell phones, iphones, ipads, ipods, or any hand held electronic devices to distract us from playing. Back then, it was easy to socialize... and that socialization did not care what color your skin was... although, there were no blacks in our community.
Had there been blacks in our community, we all would have played together as there was no racism back then... at least not until you got to high school.
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