That’s sad man - I’m sorry for you and your daughter.
It can be different - our little town and neighborhood are much like those pic’s (believe it or not).
I could go on and on about how special this place that we live is but I feel I might bum you out.
Providence brought us here. I wish the same for you.
Flew back one time from being on a business trip in Minnesota. It was July 4.
So I went on a walk through my neighborhood to see if anyone was out shooting fireworks or doing anything. I might as well have been walking through the woods in the Smokey Mountains.
It was quiet, nobody out, nothing.
In other countries on national holidays or at Christmas there is all kinds of stuff going on. Try the Christmas market in Zurich during December. It’s amazing.
We just don’t have anything comparable in large American cities.
I’m a millennial raised in central PA because my NYC parents wanted me to experience a childhood similar to theirs, not in culture but in relative freedom. They had nearby relatives with farms in NJ and upstate NY, where in the 1960’s you could drive at age 10 on your own property if you could reach the pedals. They biked for miles in the countryside, up and down the Jersey Shore, even biked in Manhattan with nobody bothering them and no helmets or knee pads.
So I got a taste of that.
But no beach. Wah!