I saw two strikingly different examples of "freedom" yesterday.
Both cases involved choices people made freely.
The first happened while I walked to the Wal-Mart check stand to pay for a prescription and some socks.
After I took my place in line, the gentleman in front of me turned around and said, "You have only two items; go ahead of me."
Having seen that he may have had five or six items, I said, "No, that's okay. I'm fine."
Still, he insisted, so I stepped in front of him and behind another shopper who had filled pretty much every inch of the check stand with her goods.
She then turned around, looked at me and said, "Why don't you go in front of me?"
Somewhat delightfully flabbergasted that such a gesture could happen twice in the same setting, I again insisted that I was fine waiting.
Well, she was pretty resolute, again insisting that I go ahead of her in line.
So, I obliged, thanking both of the shoppers profusely and thinking this beautiful, unselfish exercise of choice needed to be mentioned in my blog post.
Later, I encountered another upbeat and positive experience while purchasing some new hiking shoes at North 40.
The friendly clerk went out of her way to see that I walked out of the store happy with my purchase and topped off the experience with some generous friendliness.
These two events, illustrating generosity of spirit, made my day.
There were other very positive experiences on this beautiful September Friday, but the "perfect strangers being so nice" moments stood out.
Another event stood out later in the day. Once again, people were exercising their freedom of choice.
In this case, I watched of video of the moments before a Coeur d'Alene School Board meeting was set to begin.
In short, the scene was outrageous and filled with rage.
Since when is it okay to gang up and scream and demand your rights prior to an event specifically designed to serve as a civilized setting for hearing from the public and making subsequent decisions.
When not one word has yet been uttered in the formal, scheduled setting, and constituents show up as part of a raging, screaming, fanatical mob, do they really expect that anything is going to be accomplished other than making themselves look like total fools?
I often think that this unruly behavior is the calculated strategy these days because we're seeing similar scenes all across the nation.
Yes, we all have the freedom of choosing to act like this, but those on the receiving end also have the freedom to decide that enough is enough of this kind of behavior.
Come back and when you can act in a civil, respectful manner. Then, maybe we can talk. That seems like a pretty good option to me.
So, two tales of freedom and two very different outcomes left me with strong impressions.
By golly, I'm going to remember for a long time the positive moments spent with three perfect strangers who made choices where all concerned left the moment and the setting feeling good.
Such experiences restore, if sometimes just for a short time in our present climate, our belief in the goodness and graciousness of humanity.
And, they make us happy.
I also enjoyed some time on the deck at Trinity with Debbie, Keith Morris, Bill and Willie.
Keith is still on his mission to collect information from locals for an upcoming story, so he talked with Debbie about the local food bank.
The rest of us listened and threw in a few comments during Keith's interview.
For me, having another opportunity to sit on the deck of Trinity on a most beautiful September afternoon was truly a treat.
 |
Debbie Love and Keith Morris. |
 |
These gals, two of which are former students, were seated at the table next to us at Trinity. And, yes, it was definitely a sunglasses kind of day. Jennifer Plaster, Lisa Zimmerman Travers, Debbie Barlow and Michelle Marley. |
Seems that there's no end to the beauty we've enjoyed in the past several days, and to think that we're just moving in to the glorious and colorful season called fall.
So far so grand!
Happy Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment