These days, people worry about big government and Big Brother — not to mention big hind ends that result from too many cream-filled donuts.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Now it looks like we have to worry about Big Neighbor, too. Americans had finally arrived at a place where we thought it was safe to live in a subdivision and not have to actually get to know our neighbors. Other than the obligatory don’t-look-over-here-I’m-not-wearing-any-makeup wave we give when we see them working in the yard, we hardly ever have contact. Even here in the South, we no longer feel obligated to take a baked-from-scratch cake with real butter cream icing to a newly moved-in neighbor — heck, we don’t even spring for a pre-packaged Sarah Lee. But lately some people have been gettin’ all up in their neighbors’ bidness and no good can come of it.

Last week, a 66-year-old Florida man spent two nights in jail after his neighbors filed suit because his grass was brown and he wouldn’t re-sod. The homeowner, Joseph Prudente, said he was behind on the mortgage after his adjustable rate went up $600 per month and he chose to pay that bill rather than spend the money on his lawn. Hmmm. Let’s see. Pay the mortgage so he’d still have a lawn, or spend the money on the grass so it would be nice and green when the bank foreclosed. Seems like an easy choice to me. Some more kindly neighbors came to Prudente’s rescue, getting sod donated to secure his release. Fortunately, Prudente took his stint in the Big House in stride — he wore his Grandpa Gone Wild T-shirt to jail. It wasn’t more than a few days later that a Washington homeowners’ association decided to sue deployed soldier Lt. Burke Jensen because he didn’t have his yard landscaped before he left for Iraq. The development’s owner, Chick Edwards, was quoted in the Tri-City Herald as saying: “I really don’t give a [expletive] where he is or what his problem is. This is a contract. I don’t like the way his property looks. This clown gets to do what he wants, and I’m as mad as hell.” Now that’s neighborly. I’m sure the “clown” is doing exactly what he wants sitting in a desert somewhere trying to avoid car bombs and those giant, flesh-eating desert spiders while protecting this guy’s right to act like a butthead. My last example of neighborliness is the case of Edna Jester, 89, of Ohio, who was arrested last week and charged with theft at the behest of her neighbors, who claim she kept a football some neighborhood kids threw into her yard. She faces a $1,000 fine and six months in jail for keeping the $15 ball but she says she won’t give it back because she’s warned the kids not to throw things in her yard. You have to wonder what kind of parent sends an elderly woman to jail over a football. Sure, she may be the neighborhood curmudgeon. She may scare the kids. But when you’ve lived 89 years, that’s your right. When I get that age, if I want to be crotchety and rude to cute little Opie Taylors carrying baseball mitts, I’ve earned it. If I want to sit in front of the TV and watch my “stories” without some kids screaming outside my window, I’ve earned it. If I want to go braless and let ’em hang down to my belt and sway in the breeze…well, I guess you get the point. Leave the old woman alone. The thrill of taking kids’ balls may be the only thing keeping her alive at this point.

Life would be simpler if we returned to the good ol’ days, when the only time we saw our neighbors is when we open the window for a little fresh night air and the cat knocks out the screen forcing us to chase him through the streets in our pajamas, finally ending up in our neighbor’s backyard calling for Butthead and praying no one gets out the shotgun or calls the police.

Or maybe that’s just me.