It’s a pretty common thing for folks to reminisce about a time when they lived in a town where they never locked their doors. It’s usually a prelude to a diatribe about how rotten people have become since those idyllic days. I suspect that the apparent safety of those times was just as much a function of population density as the overall collective honesty. There were simply fewer people wandering around checking for unlocked doors, and since they were fewer, they were easier to spot.
Before we became glued to our multimedia devices, I think maybe casual interaction with neighbors was more common, and with the familiarity, maybe came a shared sense of vigilance that helped, too.
Being the stubborn optimist that I am, I think most people are basically honest. I consider myself to be honest, but I honestly can’t swear that if I found a brown paper bag with a million dollars in it, the bag I turn into the police wouldn’t have a little less in it. On the other hand, if I found someone’s wallet, I know I would never take their money, and I would work pretty hard to get it back to its owner.
More than once, and in more than one home, I have left my house keys in the front door lock overnight. And, not once has someone came in the house. It’s one thing for a passerby to actually check a doorknob to see if it’s locked, and quite another for someone to spot the keys dangling from the lock. I suppose it’s just dumb luck the wrong person didn’t happen by while those keys were there.
There’s an astonishing amount of trust amongst bluegrass festival goers. Some folks will hide their instruments in their camps or lock them in their vehicles, but just as many leave them in plain sight, and thefts are very rare at these festivals. It is a closed community – supposedly, no one’s there that didn’t pay to get in, and it’s a custom that bluegrass fans don’t often steal one another’s instruments.
I live in a small town, where trust is an inherent part of citizenship. There have been odd times when I’ve forgotten to pay for a meal, and no one noticed. We get home,and I realize I didn’t actually pay for my meal or my bar tab, and my wife didn’t either, so we just went back the next day and settled up, and no one’s feathers got ruffled. They know we’re regulars and they know we’d never intentionally stiff them.
It’s a similar vibe at work at bluegrass festivals, I think. Everyone’s a friend of everyone else, or they soon will be. Despite all that, I think I should not leave my keys dangling in the front door lock overnight.
