It was an eclectic full house at Brookview Community Center's Three One Six Bar+Grill. Golfers coming off the course. Night disc golfers preparing to go out. Grandparents with grandkids. A Muslim mother with three girls in the hijabs. A stylish trio of Black professionals seated at the bar. My wife joined me at the table where I'd been waiting for her after a meeting upstairs. Next to us, a Black male and a White woman who came in together greeted a woman who arrived minutes later. The server took our order. Then, moving to the next table, she began by asking, "Will these be separate checks?" To us, this seemed an odd way to start off an order, especially since the mixed-race couple had arrived together, while I had waited ten minutes for my dining partner. Are we being too sensitive? Is it routine for a server to ask parties of three or more if they want separate checks? Or is this an example of unconscious bias, and if so, what is the correct response?

Some years back we went out into the yard to view a major lunar eclipse. Our wooded street left us only a narrow strip through which to see the moon transform, and as the earth moved, so did our window to the heavens. Gradually, we edged toward the curb, and neighbors on either side joined us. We brought out chairs and beverages to accompany the show. Soon, eight of us had planted ourselves in the street. Though traffic was light and street does not go through, I brought a headlamp to flash should a car head toward us in the dark. Everyone else remained focused on sky. From the opposite direction I expected, a car approached. A police car. Eight of us with an unauthorized block party in the deep blackness. The officer pulled up. "What's going on?" We realized then he had no idea. We pointed. "A complete lunar eclipse." He looked up. For a moment, he was silent. Then, he said, "Cool. Have a great night." We might have been chastised for obstructing traffic. Instead the officer shared the moment with us and moved on. Was that a correct response? Is this how you'd expect a police officer to react in your neighborhood?

Diane, a vigorous retired nurse who is rehabbing after knee surgery, walks daily through the streets of Golden Valley. (I met her and heard her story as we chatted on my street.) To vary her routes, she sometimes stops off in a new neighborhood when she returns home from an errand. After a trip to Costco not long ago, she took a different way home and decided to explore a residential area bordering a small park. Since the narrow street had No Parking signs posted along the park, she left her old Ford Focus in front of a home across the street, and sauntered off. Half a block away she remembered her phone, still in the car, and went back for it. Counting her steps on a phone app was part of her rehab. As she walked through the winding streets, Diane encountered a a slow-moving police car. Then another. Once again. The police presence in the quiet neighborhood surprised her but, determined to enjoy her walk, she pressed on. Finally returning to her starting place, she noted a patrol car parked behind her Ford and decided to ask the officer what was going on. He told her they had received a call about a wandering elderly woman who seemed to be lost and distracted. They had been combing the area but hadn't found her yet. "We think that might be her car," he said, as he typed on the computer in his squad. "That's my car," Diane said. "I was out for walk." The officer looked at her, looked at the car, closed his computer screen. "Have a nice day," he said. Now Diane recalled the man who had eyed her suspiciously as he read a newspaper on his front porch. When she'd tried to make eye contact, he had raised the paper to block his face. Even if Diane appeared lost and confused when she went back to retrieve her phone, would you have called 911? Was her older car a valid mark of ill intent? If someone was concerned about her welfare, why not walk down to check on her? What would you do?