The Street

"No one is rich enough to do without a neighbor."
-Proverb

I grew up on the outskirts of a village that then boasted a population of less than six hundred people and still today with less than seven hundred.
There are no stores, so one can just imagine the hair's breadth of space the village manages to occupy in the world.
There is a single street, known to all as The Street, which stretches about the length of ten houses and which can be seen in its entirety from one end to the other. The general population is distributed among the outer regions of the area but The Street, with its Church and two pubs, is the sole meeting place and hub of the little village.
So yesterday, when Mater kindly read me a report from a county newspaper about an event which took place there, I could not contain my bewilderment.
Some fellow had been struck with an implement by unknown assailants- I strongly suspect that it was connected to a feud that spilled over from a sorry area of the city that is about fifteen miles away- and those at the newspaper thought it a good idea to give specific details about where the argument had taken place.
The unfortunate occurrence transpired "on the North Side of Main Street."
The North Side, mind you.
I have not lived near the village in some years but I largely doubt that the Road of Brevity has had to be cut into divisions and regions and classified according to its polar direction and astral coordinates.
A dear friend of my mother's, a fine neighbour to everybody and the very heart of the close knit community for as long as I can remember, has had something dreadful happen to her life.
Some youths have several times thrown eggs at her house, not out of spite toward her particularly, but from sheer mindless boredom and lack of discipline. Neither she nor any good, hardworking soul deserve to have their peaceful life invaded by idle pranksters with careless parents. The aforementioned parents have laughed off the matter and refuse to take her seriously or admonish their offspring. It is continuing and she fears it might not stop at broken eggs.
So, on the other hand, with such crime creeping in, is it any wonder that one end of the village might wish to turn its back on the other?
I suggest, though, that it remain The Street and that the encroaching and alarming trouble be solved by all people together, as a concerned community. Otherwise, I can envision the North Side being segmented into similar quarters and each of those quarters being sectioned into another North, South, East and West and on and on until even the local dairy cows begin to glare at one another in brown-eyed animosity.