I spent my working career serving a mythical creature called Community. Community, we all assumed, was a permanent human need. Then Community died.

By Community I don’t mean like-minded folks cohering. People will always need people. I mean a political unit defined by geography: a town, village or perhaps county, which governs, sustains, and supports itself, to which its members “belong.”

The first Communities arose ten millennia ago, when the human animal quit killing its food and started growing it. Growing meant humans had to stay put, cultivating their acres, defending their provisions from invaders. As Communities grew, their members specialized for efficiency. From this seed exfoliated maps, town boards, fire departments, kindergartens, shopping centers, post offices, train stations, Rotaries, local doctors, lawyers, cops, rabbis, Realtors, and all the offices clustered around a town square, served (my piece of the puzzle) by the Community Newspaper and other local media. Neighbors knew their neighbors because they needed them. You got along to avoid ejection from your hive.

Of course this system would last forever!

Only it didn’t. What killed it? Amazon, Facebook, the Internet, smartphones, systems that supplied folks their necessities regardless of geography. If I can order a book I crave in minutes for cheaper and have it show up on my doorstep tomorrow, why would I bestir myself to shave, dress, get in the car, park, and browse my local bookstore, which won’t be stocking this title (my tastes are esoteric) but could order it for delivery in two weeks? Maybe if I was bored and time hung heavy. Alas, thanks to the Internet, the opposite is true, I am drowning in urgencies, importunities, emojis, not a moment to spare, even if my White House were not being trashed.

So with most of my needs except the dentist and milk. With a click I can summon them from a faceless distance like Aladdin’s genie. And the entertainment value of a local zoning board meeting can’t compete with the comfort of a streamed video in my pj’s sipping a Negroni. Community newspapers died because folks stopped needing what was in them, news of their neighbors. In our conscientious newsrooms we were cooking what fewer and fewer wanted to eat.

The paradoxical impact of faster and more plentiful communications has been to make us lonelier. Community is a learned skill, how to say howdy to a neighbor we don’t like, dope out who’s who, figure how to get things done. Newcomers grouse their communities don’t work as they’re “supposed to.” They never did. There’s the community on paper and the more potent community of raised eyebrows, winks and nods.

If communities die, what then? Don’t ask me. If I could foresee the future, I’d be a billionaire, and we’d have had two women Presidents. (Imagine – Japan got a woman chief before America!) I don’t bemoan tomorrow because I distrust my prevision. I’m guessing I’ll enjoy it less.

There was a charm and invigoration in Community which my grandkids may never experience. If you’re one of eight thousand you matter more than if you’re one of eight billion. As Editor and Publisher of our Community Newspaper, I was a hotshot, not a pathetic also-ran. It feels good knowing the butcher’s name and that his wife is recovering from her accident. The bigness of today’s biggies demotes the rest of us by comparison.

In my dreams I sigh for yesteryear; awake I navigate the perplexing present. And behold, here we are, a new kind of community – of companionable souls, enticed from far and wide into our virtual snuggery with its cozy pews! I embrace you all.