Knowing that my neighbors were hardened criminals might make the prospect more intriguing to me 
The Postal Service rules are stringent when it comes to the use of mailboxes. According to USPS regulations, only mail that has been sent through and bears postage paid through the USPS can be placed in a mailbox. This rule is in place to protect the privacy and security of the mailbox owner and to ensure the efficient operation of the postal service.
With a bounce house and whatever, they kids are dialed up to 11, so unless they are your kids or grandkids, not as many people like that.
From the amount they were requesting, it looks like they were just planning on only having families with kids.
Obviously you aren’t Mormon.
As a kid, I learned of the existence of block parties through an article in a children’s magazine (maybe Electric Company magazine?). It sounded like fun as a kid, but as an adult I have zero interest.
On an unrelated note, I hate potlucks.
I grew up in Salt Lake City in the 60s and 70s, in a middle class urban neighorhood.
The neighborhood was maybe 70% to 80% Mormon and almost all the children were in Mormon families. Anything like that was just done at Church.
The last neighborhood I lived in started having them a couple times/year for the last several years I lived there. They were very kid-centric, as there was a pretty high-density of young couples. However the peculiarity of our street was that my ~third of the block faced the fenced back end of an elementary school building, so all the density and activities (bouncy house et al) were on the far end of the block from me.
Which suited me and my neighbor (a good friend of mine sharing a duplex) just fine. We had made a game stab at being social and attended one neighborhood meeting early in this dawning cycle. Though they were mostly pleasant people, we had decided as non-parents that being social with this group wasn’t for us. I go out of my way to always be friendly to my neighbors when I randomly run across them, but much like Dinsdale I’m not interested in being friends with them. And as a non-parent, I’m not terribly interested in kid-centric events. Also I work evening shifts with non-standard days off. I never attended.
Now I live in a condo building stuffed to the gills with seniors (not a designated senior complex, just gradually ended up like that because of low turnover) and virtually no children except the occasional visitors. It’s quite a bit like the SDMB . I’m just as pleasant to others as always, but I’m no more social in this much quieter milieu. I avoid all the occasional building get togethers/holiday parties/random activities/volunteer safety drills like the plague.
Lasting impression - as we’ve walked the dog the mornings after the party, we noticed soda cans on the block of and bocks beyond the party. IMO, if you are throwing the party, the least you could do is police the surrounding area afterwards…
We’ll bring a bag with us tomorrow and clean up what we see…
Our block parties include large prominent garbage pails. Conveniently located near the keg. We don’t end up with much stray trash.
Ours were very disciplined about making sure that some number of people hung out at the end to clean up all the trash and gather everything together and fold up the chairs that our city council office made available to us and they were really good.
Well…I imagine if you don’t like socializing with people and have no interest in your neighbors, a block party isn’t for you.