Older neighbors often have great stories nobody’s asked to hear. Ask.

People accumulate decades of experience and then gradually stop being asked about any of it, because everyone assumes the stories have been told or that asking would intrude. Most are not waiting to be left alone, they are waiting for a question. A long life holds jobs, places and events you have only read about, and somebody who lived through them is four doors away.

Ask one specific question rather than a general how are you: what this street used to look like, what they did for work, where they grew up. Then stay for the answer. Ten minutes is usually enough to start something.