Hey, Dad, is that really you?

A moving van is coming up the street, making the same sounds I produce after a major meal. It gasps and lurches. Pretty soon its brakes hiss. A family of five pulls up behind the truck. New neighbors into this cul-de-sac of lust, dust and broken dreams. Poor suckers.

While fetching the paper, I make a mental note to go welcome them later, after I’ve had my coffee and caressed the box scores. Heck, I never remember my mental notes. I’ll go meet them now.

“Welcome to the ‘hood,” I say.

“Thanks,” says the father.

In this town, neighbors come and neighbors go. Expectations for new arrivals aren’t huge. We hope that they don’t leave their trash cans out all week. That they don’t paint the new place purple.

If we’re feeling lucky, we hope that they are a little interesting. The kind of people who understand a Bill Maher joke. Who’ve maybe heard of Ernie Banks.

But who could’ve ever expected this?

“Hiya,” says a 10-year-old boy.

“Hiya back,” I say.

“Where you from?” I ask.

“Chicago,” the dad says.

“No kidding,” I say.

With new neighbors, you often hope for the best. But have you ever hoped for the past?

You have, because in the back of your mind, that’s how all families should be. The kids should ride their bikes all day, just like you did as a child. On summer nights, they should play kick-the-can till Carson comes on. Cokes should cost a dime. Drysdale should still be glaring from the mound.

The new neighbor kids should eat Popsicles that drip all the way to their armpits. They should run the streets till the bottom of their feet turn into moccasins. They should get so dirty that they’ll never come clean.

On this morning, my imagination runs a little wild as well. I watch the new neighbors and morph them into the family we were in 1970 -- people who huddle around the TV together on Sunday nights. People who count their pennies and re-sole their shoes. Who pass down shirts from big brother to little brother. Who change their own oil.

“What’s your name?” I ask the new kid next door.

“What’s yours?” asks the boy.

In this city, sometimes you know the neighbors’ names. Many times you don’t. In your mind, you’re always comparing them to an idealized vision of what a family should be. Your dad. Your mom.

The kids? They should behave like you did when you were kids. Outside always. Respectful of adults. Well, at least openly.

“What do you do for fun?” the new boy asks.

“Fun?” I tease. “There’s no fun here.”

“Seriously,” says the boy.

Well, a certain amount of car washing goes on, I tell him. Some tending to the lawns. For the most part, though, strangers come in each week to care for the neighborhood -- the lawns, the gardens, the towels. The residents stay mostly indoors. Who knows what goes on in there.

“Too bad,” says the boy.

“You’ll get used to it,” I say.

When I was 10, I tell him, the kids were always outside. They threw apples at buses and rocks at trains. In big oaks, they built forts from scrap lumber. Occasionally, a kid would fall out. He’d climb back up. Then fall out again. Unless someone broke a bone, the mothers never knew.

“I’m like that,” the boy says.

“I doubt it,” I say.

“No really,” he insists.

Suppose you had a second childhood and it moved in next door? Suppose your dad is back and the same age as you. Your mom is 40 again and pretty as a Monet. How crazy would that be? How strange? How wonderful?

Think of the questions you could ask. Think of the long talks you’d have after the kids went to bed.

“How’d you do it?” I’d ask, “hold a family together through all the ups and downs?” I’d ask them how they managed on 30 grand a year. I’d ask them if parenthood was ever as easy as they made it all seem.

“Sure,” my old man would probably answer.

“You kids were a dream,” I’m sure my mom would say.

In the past, wasn’t everything? Well, maybe.

Happy Father’s Day.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.