Living in a really great neigbourhood

Just is case we forgot how puny we mortals be... came the wind, on Saturday.
It was, as Maggie Muggins used to observe sometime in a previous millennium, quite a day.
It began with an auction, just down the street, as Christine's house and most of her worldly goods were up for purchase. Christine is an old friend of mine in every sense of the word ­-- she is, I believe, 97 or so; until her knees finally failed her a few months ago, she had lived on this street since 1934. Again, until the legs went completely, she managed to work as an archivist for an insurance company, and a volunteer for the local Wilmot Family Resource Centre, several days a week.
Working, in her mid-90s. Christine knew no other way.
So it was sad, to huddle against the elements in a tent, with a collection of strangers and neighbours (in about equal parts), and see Christine's stuff be sold. It was the right thing to do, of course, but it was sad, none the less.
Piece by piece, the auctioned continued. There was plenty of good news in the midst of the sorrow. Most of the neighbours picked up something of Christine's, and carried their treasurers one, two or a few houses away to continue her presence on our street. We personally got some bookcases, some books, and a couple of lovely pieces of jewelry Nancy will treasure.
Eventually, the house itself was sold, to a young couple from Kitchener. They seemed quite surprised when, as soon as the gavel went down, eight or ten people within touching distance reached out friendly hands and welcomed them to the neighbourhood.
The weather was miserable, but the tented auction was able to finish.
Then, things got worse.
As we began to take our purchases home, bent against the wind, a neighbour's tree split in half, and the broken half crashed down on a passing car. Nancy was first to the car, and found the driver ­-- a neighbour ­-- in shock but amazingly unhurt, although the sunroof was smashed, the windshield was smashed, and the car was bashed in from stem to stern. I called the police, other neighbours appeared with chainsaws and manoeuvered the tree off the road, and all of us marvelled that the driver had escaped, unscathed.
That was before he told his wife ­-- it was her new car. I'm joking; they dropped in later, both much relieved at the outcome.
As we scurried around to deal with that crisis, someone noticed my garden shed, and its contents. This sounds like a pretty mundane sight, but what was remarkable was, the shed was upside down, the contents were distributed rather far and wide, and most of the above was no longer on our property. The wind had struck again.
I was walking back to survey that damage, when someone's patio chair cover, followed by the chair itself, blew past. Oh, wait, that was my patio chair. Some remedial stacking and covering was clearly called for.
And so it went, a day of wind and rain and sleet and snow and near disasters. By the end of the day, all those neighbours who had welcomed the young couple were back in their own homes, listening to the wind howl and... I'm guessing... wondering how the heck the tent had stayed up for the entire auction.
That would certainly have pulled the neighbourhood together... rolling about in a fallen tent!
But this neighbourhood doesn't need much encouragement to pull together. Just to see the shared sense of loss caused by Christine's departure; the friendly welcome offered the soon-to-be-new residents; and the concern and care shown to the driver of the car smashed by the tree.... well, those were great reminders of how lucky we are to live in a community like this.
Although my immediate neighbours might not agree, at least until I figure out how to get the wreck of a garden shed off their lawn.