I was driving to and from an African-American bookstore the other day and was  thinking about my thoughts for this article. My senses were on autopilot, as  it were, since I have taken this route to Merrick near Francis Lewis Boulevard ... I don't know . . . thousands of times since I was old enough to see over a dashboard. What makes this trip so timeless and surreal sometimes is that not a lot has changed here since my childhood.
Many of the same houses, buildings and businesses still stand in the same place. The sight of Hasidim walking across
the street near the cemetery that's near a place my friends
and I called "the Hill"  still gives me a reason to take a double take. But other than that, it’s still the best I have ever seen in a Black neighborhood anywhere. The houses are old but bold, the lawns manicured.
Even as I move north through an area that used to be considered bad, the images appear the same to me. Children playing on the street, some older kids who are doing their best imitation of adults, clustered together near one store or another.
I wondered if anyone who’s lived here for any length of time would see the   neighborhood this way. Would my friends -- many of whom have moved to other   parts of the country -- see what I saw on a drive through Hollis, St. Albans   and Queens Village at that moment?
I know in my mind that 20 years later, things should be different, but somehow at the same time, I couldn't feel any changes took place here.
Is that a bad thing or a good thing?
The house my dad tells me James Brown used to live still stands.  The supermarket I used to run to on Sunday for the paper is still an Associated stochain link.
If the saying goes the more things change the more they stay the same it is  also true that the more things stay the same the more things change.
I guess for me, the bottom line is that while Southern Queens is one of the  richest communities based on per capita income and cultural diversity, it is  still one of the most invisible sections of the city.
We should ask ourselves: Do the streets still flood despite our complaints?  Are our schools still nothing more than giant daycare centers?
Is crime still the problem it was in the 80's?
If the answer is yes, after all this time, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
I would hope that during this time when we are doing well -- relatively speaking -- we don't miss the opportunity to make life better for all of us.
Growing up, I would see people moving to and fro in their lives, not worrying about the outside world because they really needed the energy to take care of themselves and their families.
Today, I notice the same self-centered scurrying about, but people who live in the same houses  I threw newspapers at are living a little better now.
Sadly, it seems that now we know and care about each other less. To me, it translates into a lesser regard for the community as a whole. 
From failing to fill out that census lying on your hallway table, to not knowing the names of the kids in your neighborhood . . . it is the little things that can make a community strong beyond race and money.
I've always said this administration missed a golden opportunity when crime dropped. It could have put its resources into to building a bond with the people of the community instead of continuing to squeeze for arrest numbers.
I hope history won't say that we are guilty of the same thing: missing the   opportunity to aim our resources into our community to bring us out of the shadows. We need to make our neighborhoods strong, our kids smarter and our streets a little safer because we'll know the people on them. 
I think the simple tasks of knowing each other is a start.  It should lead to doing something . . .anything to make our world a better place. We all know what those things are but we'd much rather water our lawns or watch TV than spend then time otherwise.
The time to use the wealth of our money, knowledge and time is now.
The window to turn the tide of apathy is limited, before the fortunes of politics once again make life for us more difficult. You know how it goes. When the economy turns, who usually gets it first? That's also usually the time when some of our own who've been away up north, are back and up to their old games . . .becoming a pro-active community is something I've always wish for Southeast Queens. I wish it would become a community that City Hall fears like Crown Heights, Gramercy Park or Rego Park. 
So let's not wait until there is a fire, murder, flood or shooting to get involved and bond with your neighborhood. I hope in another 20 years, when we're driving down the same streets watching kids play, the cars being washed, or the vans cutting people off, We'll know that while things may look the same, they are truly different.