R.D. and Euzelle Smith - On their neighbours (clip)
Interviewed by Alexander Stephens and Alex Biggers on January 20, 2011
Alex Biggers (AB): Are you guys close with a lot of your neighbors?
Euzelle Smith (ES): Hm?
AB: Are you guys close with a lot of your neighbors?
ES: No, no, not many. Most of them are tenants.
Alexander Stephens (AS): What is your relationship with them? Is it a lot of students now?
ES: Yeah a lot of students.
AS: And how do you feel about that?
ES: They are peaceful neighbors, and that's fine. They do their thing, they come and go. They don’t disturb the community. And we have tenants right over here and a lot of them are foreign, and some of them are foreign next door here. We just see them coming and going, that’s all. So we’re fortunate to have peaceful neighbors. They don't mingle, but they dont disturb you either.
AS: How did it used to be when it was mostly the folks who owned their homes living in them?
ES: We were in and out, very neighborly. We get along well together. Sometimes we would do things together like have cookouts.
R.D. Smith (RDS): Neighbors?
ES: The neighbors
RDS: The Caldwells, the Hargraves, all that. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
AS: So would you say everyone used to be pretty close on this street?
RDS: Oh yeah. Actually, I’m from Goldsboro, North Carolina, which is the eastern part of North Carolina. I grew up down there, and I had a lady who taught me shorthand. I realized she was living right down the street, Mrs. Eleanor Riggsbee, was a former teacher of mine. She’s passed on now, but I didn't realize she was from Chapel Hill. But uh, I came here [and] I realized she was still living out here. She built a house down there, right down the street.
