Roots in the community. Their enjoyment not only bequeaths the individual with a sense of comforting familiarity, but a sense of melancholic fondness the transient will never know. Between 1940 and 1968, my family lived in the close-knit, quintessentially Brooklyn brownstone neighborhood of Park Slope where one's identity was circumscribed by words like "stoop" and "block". In 1968 we moved to Levittown. The expansion of the Methodist Hospital put our Sixth Street asunder and the loreli song of suburbia proved irresistible. Christmas cards, occasional phone calls, family photos, and fond memories keep us connected to those bygone days.

Now, after three decades, many of our old Levittown neighbors have moved from the realm of borrowing tools, baby and house sitting, to keep-in-touch letters, weddings, and the occasional funeral. This spring, it will be Jean and Jerry's turn. Long Island natives, they lived in the Levitt Cape Cod next door since 1962 and their backyard became the epicenter of many a block party in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s.

One cannot begin to express gratitude and look back at their many kindnesses wherein they made a family of six kids and a dog and cat feel welcomed. Even a brief vignette of recollections would take up too much space in this forum. Well, needless to say, Jean and Jerry are people who exhibit that wonderful variant of community spirit, affability, and concern which was once a common Brooklyn trait (and still is in many cases) and which can be summed up in one single word: Levittowner.

Jean and Jerry will soon be moving on to retirement in Virginia. A beautiful home in a beautiful state. Levittown offered them many possibilities and rewarded them with many opportunities hitherto uncommon and today generally taken for granted. But with every passing year, especially of late, I became ever more cognizant of just how ephemeral is our being. How little time any of us have in this life. One finds no fault with those who wish to spend some of that fleeting time exploring the sense of place and the lives of other people residing beyond the confines of our immediate environs. And in a goodly many ways, my old neighbors who are moving are not really leaving Levittown or their lives here behind. Quite the contrary, they are taking Levittown with them wherever they go much as I and my parents and siblings still nurture fond memories of Brooklyn life within us.

Indeed, membership in the Levittown Historical Society is not restricted only to current Levittown residents for this very reason. Every month the Society receives letters from people all over the United States - and overseas - with fond recollections and heartwarming anecdotes about their lives here in Levittown in years gone by. In many ways, the Levittown Historical Society's little museum at the Levittown Memorial Education Center is an echo of these lives with its fine collection of vintage photographs and pre-1960 Americana.