🎵 Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? 🎵

The clock on my Jeep dashboard read 4:36 a.m.

There I sat at a red light, waiting to make a left turn toward the gym. The roads were practically deserted, as they should be at that ungodly hour. Most normal people were still tucked into their beds, dreaming sweet dreams, while Kiki was preparing to voluntarily lift heavy objects and question her life choices.

Suddenly, a massive tractor-trailer carrying enormous cement highway dividers came chugging through the intersection.

I watched this beast of a vehicle lumber past me and thought, Can you imagine driving that thing all over town?

And just like that, my squirrel brain took the wheel.

🎵 Who are the people in your neighborhood🎵

Remember that catchy little tune from Sesame Street?

For those of us who grew up with Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, and the gang, that song was practically a childhood anthem. It introduced us to all the wonderful people who worked in our communities. The firefighters. The teachers. The doctors. The mail carriers. The bakers.

The baristas.

Well, okay. That last one might be a more recent addition. Sesame Street was around long before Starbucks became a mandatory stop on Kiki’s morning commute.

But you get the idea.

As I sat there humming away, I started thinking about the extraordinary number of people whose jobs make our ordinary days possible.

Think about it.

I wake up in the morning and brush my teeth. Somewhere, someone went to work to manufacture my toothbrush. Another person helped develop my favorite toothpaste. Someone designed the packaging, someone operated the machinery, someone loaded the boxes onto a truck, and another person stocked the shelves where I eventually purchased it.

All that before I’ve even rinsed and spit.

I hop into my Jeep. That beautiful machine didn’t just magically appear in my driveway. Engineers designed it. Factory workers assembled it. Technicians tested it. Thousands of people contributed to the parts that make it run.

I pull out onto roads designed, paved, painted, repaired, plowed, and maintained by people I’ll probably never meet.

Including, apparently, the fellow transporting half a highway through my intersection at 4:36 in the morning.

God bless him. Better him than me.

I arrive at the gym. Someone unlocked the doors, turned on the lights, cleaned the equipment, programmed the workout, and made sure there were enough dumbbells available for us to torture ourselves before sunrise.

And let’s not forget the person who manufactured those dumbbells.

I’d like a word with that individual.

After my workout, I head to Starbucks, where my beloved Venti Iced Americano awaits. But before that glorious cup of caffeinated happiness reaches my hand, consider how many people have already been involved.

Coffee farmers. Harvesters. Roasters. Truck drivers. Warehouse workers. Equipment manufacturers. And finally, my favorite baristas, who somehow manage to smile at me while preparing approximately 4,000 variations of coffee for people who haven’t yet learned how to speak in complete sentences.

The whole operation is nothing short of miraculous. And we’re barely past breakfast.

I arrive at work in a school district where thousands of children begin their day. Think of the people who make THAT happen.

Bus drivers. Teachers. Custodians. Cafeteria workers. Nurses. Secretaries. Administrators. Maintenance crews. Technology specialists.

And yes, the lovely people in Registration who make sure those little darlings actually belong in the district in the first place.

Now multiply this by every school, hospital, grocery store, restaurant, airport, construction site, and office building across the country.

My goodness. It’s a wonder my squirrel brain hasn’t short-circuited.

What fascinates me most is how interconnected we all are.

The truck driver depends on the mechanic. The mechanic depends on the parts manufacturer. The manufacturer depends on the delivery company. The delivery company depends on the people maintaining the roads.

Round and round we go.

An enormous, complicated, beautifully choreographed production involving millions of people who will never know one another’s names.

And here’s the part that really struck me.

Most of these people go about their jobs without applause, recognition, or even a simple thank-you.

The sanitation worker who empties our trash before dawn. The overnight nurse who comforts a frightened patient. The utility worker who restores electricity during a storm. The supermarket employee who stocks the shelves while the rest of us sleep.

We rarely think about them until something goes wrong.

The garbage doesn’t get picked up. The power goes out. The roads aren’t plowed. The coffee shop is closed.

Suddenly, the people we barely noticed become the people we desperately need.

I think Sesame Street was onto something much bigger than teaching a bunch of preschoolers about different occupations.

It was teaching us that everybody has a place. Everybody contributes. And every single job, no matter how big or small it might seem, plays a part in keeping this crazy world spinning.

There’s something rather beautiful about that.

All these years later, I’m still learning lessons from a bunch of Muppets.

Who knew?

By the time the traffic light turned green, I’d mentally traveled through factories, farms, warehouses, hospitals, highways, and coffee plantations.

All because one man was hauling cement dividers through town before sunrise.

I made my left turn, headed toward the gym, and smiled.

So here’s to the people in our neighborhood. The ones we know, the ones we don’t, and the ones who make our lives run a little more smoothly every single day.

And to the gentleman driving that enormous tractor-trailer at 4:36 a.m.?

Thank you for doing your part.

🎵 They’re the people that you meet when you’re walking down the street… 🎵

Or, in my case, the people who send my squirrel brain on a 47-mile detour before I’ve even had my first cup of coffee.

Beep beep. Kiki’s got places to be.

Sesame Street Lessons
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Author: KikiFikar

Kiki Fikar is a native New Yorker who is passionate about taking the day to day life we all experience and sharing it in her tales from Suburbia. She will often be found at the gym, writing snippets each day for future story lines, listening to her two children create their lives, and building the perfect beachfront home and writing retreat in her mind.

40 thoughts on “🎵 Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? 🎵”

  1. Well, that song will be stuck in my head a bit. I also noticed your last post was about thinking and going left, but you went right. Glad you did not turn left this time. I think of this every day when trucks go by, people opening shops, and people sweeping and cleaning the sidewalk. We never really consider that in our lives. Great post.

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    1. Thank you so very much! We are all out here every day interacting and not even realizing it. Life is so fascinating to me when I stop and actually look around.

      Hope you are having fun. Loving your travel day stories.

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  4. isn’t it amazing Kiki? we often complain that we wish things were laid out before us but in reality, there’s a whole world in which competing incentives not only make it happen, but make it happen (for the most part) in the best and most presentable ways possible.

    we really are fortunate to live in such times!

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    1. Right Mike! I mean sometimes my brain goes completely rabbit hole and I think of something as simple as let’s say….shoelaces. Someone makes the plastic things that wrap the ends of shoelaces. Someone is on quality control of these machines. The possibilities are endless. It just makes me appreciate everything a little bit more every day.

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      1. well, here’s one for ya!….in the morning, i’m looking for positive and uplifting stuff to read and who’s there on the ol’ reader? BAM! my good friend Kiki who has a post all ready 😀

        Happy Friday!

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      2. The early bird Kiki! It hit me on the drive. I sent myself a text with the sketch and mentioned it to my pal Sharon when I got to the gym. I landed at home and went for a quick 30 minute walk. I settled in with some coffee and boom just let it flow! Lol

        I’m heading into NYC to see Billy Crystal tonight. Woohoo!!

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  9. I like how you keep us wondering about the neighbors. Like I can almost see the guy on the tractor…I used my immediate neighborhood for my first novel “The Bayou Heist” as it is an interesting place. Right now, we are experiencing lots of rain as bands are coming off the Hurricane Isaias headed more North toward the Gulf and Alabama.

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  10. Nicely done, it made me think about the diversity of people living in my own neighborhood from blue hair to rednecks, white collar and blue, you’ve never noticed unless you take the time. Reminds me of an old song that tells us to stop and smell the roses..

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  11. Anyone who doesn’t realize that capitalism delivers far more sunny days than not should read this post on how a committed and cooperative society comports itself to both serve and benefit. And without any further ado, I wrote these lyrics for both of us:

    A sad baseball fan is a person in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood; they’re in your neighborhood-ood…

    Trust me, that was not the song Mike Francesca was singing the other morning. I listened to his twenty-five-minute rant on his podcast. He was not happy.

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    1. I spit out my coffee. That was a perfect response! Dying!

      I heard a really good piece on WFAN yesterday as we waited for the train. All about the Joe Torre Yankees vs. current day Yankees. Spot on stuff. To sum up – was Derek Jeter talented and awesome because he was under Joe Torre? No – it’s because he was Derek Jeter and had drive. They went on to mention other team greats so it wasn’t just about Jeter. It was about the mentality and drive in the players.

      We could yap for hours about this!

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      1. I always believed that Jeter, Bernie, Tino, and Paul O’Neil were a rare and unique mesh of baseball talent, and that anything surrounding them, be it aging veterans like Tim Raines and Darryl Strawberry, young call-ups like Ricky Ledee and Shane Spencer, and journeymen players like Luis Soho and Jose Vizcaino, were instantly augmented. The surrounding cast weren’t stars, just the people in your neighborhood. ⚾

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  12. I love this piece because it reminds me how many people go unheard and unseen. They work hard, sometimes their entire lives, yet never seem to get ahead. Imagine putting in all that effort and reaching retirement with no more financial security than you had when you left high school.

    Living with family or renting a home is no measure of failure. What troubles me is how many people have so little choice, despite doing everything they can. Society places barriers in their way, then too often blames them for being unable to get past them.

    I witnessed that as a lawman, and it made me sick. Some of the people I dealt with fell deeper into the system because they could not afford a way out. There was no public transportation, but they still had to get to work. So they drove—sometimes with a suspended license, expired tags, or no insurance. They could not afford to put everything right, and another ticket only pushed that possibility further away.

    There were days I went home carrying considerable guilt because I understood those families’ plight. I was barely making it from paycheck to paycheck myself. I knew how little distance there could be between keeping your head above water and going under.

    The families we seldom notice, doing work we seldom acknowledge, manage the impossible on wages many of us could scarcely imagine living on.

    And when we talk about removing immigrant workers, we ought to consider the people who depend on their work, too. If those workers are forced out and no one takes their place, the consequences will reach far beyond their families.

    Folks may finally notice just how much those unseen people do when the work stops getting done.

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  13. I remember Sesame Street fondly, including that scene (is that Neil Sedaka?), Kiki. Once upon a time, I used to get up at the crack of dawn thirty to hit the gym. Not so much now. I do get up early, though, due to my new seasonal gig that blesses me with nearly an hour commute. I’m not the quick-riser I used to be back in the days of Big Bird, Bert and Ernie and the whole Sesame Street gang. Your post brought back memories of ABC School Rock and Fat Albert. Thanks for the early morning chuckles and the reminder that it takes all of us and each of us to make this world function, let alone a better place. Blessings.

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    1. Thank you so much for this response! Loved it. So happy you are here. Your work gives me so much to think about. I’ve stepped away from my faith a bit and I’m trying to return. You have no idea how much I take away from your words.

      Now I’m stuck in a Saturday morning cartoon mind tornado. Fat Albert! Yes!

      Have the best week and drives into work.

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  14. We are very fortunate to be part of a larger system of many hidden and unsung heroes who make the things we take for granted in our days work, Karen. This was a lovely tribute to them. 🙏💕

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