The southern heat hit me as I got off the train. It must have been 115 degrees. A wet 115 degrees. Northerners like me don’t do that kind of heat. It felt like the sun was visiting Virginia and came via the sewer.
I was down there for business a few days ago. A small town. Real small. When I got off the train I didn’t know which direction to walk. I spotted a man sitting on the bench inside the station. I call it a station but it’s not really a station. It’s more like they put a roof on top of the place where the train stops.
The man I asked for directions had a big belly, perfectly parted gray hair, and a furry mustache. If you were making a movie about an old time Southern lawyer, this was your guy. He looked out the window for a moment and then gave me perfect directions. I mean, he didn’t just tell me how to get to the street. He told me about the street. Everything he knew about it. And he told me everything about the things that if I saw, it would mean I’d gone too far. And then in case I did go too far he gave me directions from the possible places where I might get lost.
He offered to walk me over but I refused. I guess, being a Northerner, I figured anyone being this nice was selling something. I left him sitting there.
I found my destination easily and was pretty happy, mainly because it was an air conditioned office. Did I mention it was hot outside? It was like practice for Hell kind of hot.
The meeting went well and I was back at the train station fifteen minutes early for my train. I sat down on the bench outside, took out a book, and listened for the sound of a train. I waited. And waited.
And waited.
There were about nine other people waiting on the two benches inside, under the air condition that whirred to life at random moments. There was a woman using a walker who’d just returned from her brother’s funeral, her husband, a Russian woman continuously snapping photos of her son who was excited about taking his first train ride, and a father waiting for his son.
I didn’t want to take up any room on the benches in the slightly air conditioned station so I stood outside on the platform. Soon, my friend with the mustache and the perfectly parted hair returned. He asked me how my meeting went. I said fine.
“Fine” is pretty much my standard response. Being from the north, it is actually impolite to give a real answer. No one wants to know. The question itself is just a polite acknowledgment that you are taking up the space near them. So I always answer “fine.” I honestly could be holding my severed foot in my arms and I’d say “fine” if you asked me how I was doing. It’s not an answer. It’s a response. There’s a difference.
But my clever response didn’t deter my new Southern friend. He asked me where I was from. I told him Philadelphia and he informed me it was a terrible place and he’d been to football games there and Philadelphians are just nasty people, present company excepted, of course. He asked me if I was married. Kids? How many? What I did? Where I went to college?
I think at some point he was all questioned out so he asked me what train I was waiting for. I told him I was waiting for the 4:46. Oh, he said.
And that’s when he told me that the train was delayed. Not just delayed. But DELAYED!!! He said he’d heard someone say it was delayed at least four hours due to some chemical spill a few towns over.
Oh nooooo. Four hours? Did I mention it was hot?
Then he started telling me that I might need to know that if the train didn’t come until after 9 p.m. the doors to the station locked automatically so one of us should make sure to stay inside to make sure all the other nice people waiting for the train didn’t get locked outside.
“What time is your train?” I asked him.
“Well,” he said. “That depends.” And then he told me that he’d come into town for his high school reunion from South Carolina the week before. Not only did he not know anyone there but shortly after, he suffered a heart attack. His tenth. Yup. His tenth. He joked that his gravestone would read, “It’s about time.”
By the time he was released from the hospital he missed his train and he couldn’t do anything with his non-refundable ticket. He had no money and had to wait until next week when a check he was expecting would clear. So he’d been living in, near, and around the station for a week waiting for a check to clear.
He called his sister who said she couldn’t afford to send him a check because her dog had worms. “If he’s got worms, take him fishing” he told her. “I’m your kin.” I’m guessing she didn’t think that was funny. And then he got off the phone quickly. He said he was afraid of “cussing at her” if he didn’t.
I asked him when the last time he ate and he said, “a while.” So I tried to give him ten dollars but he refused, saying three dollars would do him fine. He told me Virginia law’s stated that if you had money in your pocket you weren’t loitering. So he thanked me for helping him not be a lawbreaker and off he went. About an hour later he returned.
Within twenty minutes he had everyone talking. He talked about his time as an choir singer in college, he told us that Luciano Pavarotti had a heckuva voice but he was meaner than a cornered cat, he told us that the water off the Gulf was so clear that it made fishing so easy you felt you were cheating. The woman from Russia told us trains there were never late. A man originally from India said trains were always late there. And everyone offered condolences for the passing of that woman’s brother. There was more talk of “better places” and heaven than I’ve heard at half the homilies in my life.
Soon, everyone in the train station was talking like they’d known each other since the second grade. And I wouldn’t have been more uncomfortable if I was lying on a picket fence. I’m just not a sharer.
At around 9 p.m. and with no train in sight, my friend taught everyone how to close the station door while making sure the lock didn’t catch so nobody would get locked out. Then he started swallowing his medicines at the water fountain and he told everyone his story about his heart attack and he told them that the nurse had to stick him four times before she could find blood and then she had the gall to blame him.
About then a man walked into the station. He was pretty filthy and he looked like he’d cut his own hair. His clothes hung off him, way too big for him. He looked surprised to see us all there and he walked up to my train station bff and thanked him quietly for buying him a hotdog earlier. My friend kinda’ snuck a peek at me and told the other man not to worry about it. He said we’re here to help each other. When the man left, my friend leaned toward me and said that when he got to the store he saw that man and thought he’d help him out a bit. He said that he’d talked with him and it turned out he needed a hot dog a little more than he did.
He had three dollars and he bought another man a hot dog. That blew me away. Truly blew me away. And I thought to myself that while I may mean well by others, unless I actually talk to people I’ll never know if anyone needs help. Aren’t we always told about welcoming strangers because you might be entertaining angels. Well, I wonder how many angels I’ve walked by. Or how many angels I told I was fine.
Silence can sometimes mean selfishness.
My friend suddenly checked his phone, turned around, and told the room that his sister texted him that she’d Western Union the money sometime the next day. And then we joked about who would get on a train first.
About an hour later, my train came. Everyone in this little practice for Hell hot room shook hands and said, “God bless” as they got on the train. As I got to the door, I gave my friend the money I had in my pocket. He said it was too much and I told him to say nice things about Philadelphians in the future. He agreed that he would. And I believe he will. To anyone he comes in contact with.
As I got on the train I saw him laughing with the cleaning crew who came in every night around ten. I watched two men help to lift the lady with the walker onto the train. The Russian woman snapped photos of her son boarding the train. And as I got on the train, a man putting his three year old son to sleep on the seat across the aisle from me, asked me how was the wait. I started to say “fine” but I didn’t. I told him.
And now I’m telling you.
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Matt,
This is one of your finest pieces; lovely and brilliant. Thanks for sharing, it aligns remarkably well with the homily we heard today, something about loaves and fishes and sharing and being neighborly! Talk about angels unattended.
I got stuck on a train platform for 5 hours. The local homeless guy taught me some funny poems, so I bought him a taco. I guess it was kind of fun, but if I want to get somewhere on time, I’ll take the plane or bus.
Beautiful, and backs up my long-held belief that the poor are God’s friends.
Beautiful and inspiring. Thanks so much for sharing.
Great story! In response to “I’m just not a sharer,” I would say that you share just fine!
Thankyou for sharing this awsome story. Being from new England I can relate to just repeating the word “fine.”
Folks down south….are so very different from we folks up north…......and alot more down to earth. On a side note, we often visit the deep south in summer and we always meet more committed christian and catholics for that matter then up here in New England. Is that just my personal observation although sometimes
I wonder????
Amen. Thank you.
Just so you know, those of us born & bred in the south hate the heat, too. Hence the air conditioning!
& sadly, the younger generations seem less inclined to hospitality & friendship than the older.
There is a Judy Holliday/Dean Martin movie called “The Bells are Ringing”. In it is a scene where the two of them are standing on a corner in New York City waiting for the light to turn green so they can cross. They are surrounded by a multitude of grim faced fellow New Yorkers. Dean makes a comment about how nasty they all look and Judy says NO! they are all just people like she and Dean and that you only have to take the time to get to know them. She then proceeds to introduce herself to the guy next to her and before you know it everyone is talking to everyone and smiling and laughing….and then the light changes, the dead pan expressions return and they cross. At the next light Dean tries it with the same result. The scene is hilarious and I kept thinking of it as I read your piece.
I often tell my kids when they complain about some strangers behavior, that everyone has a story. If they are cranky, or cut them off in traffic, you need to take a deep breath and remember that we don’t know their “story”. People aren’t usually nasty just for the sake of it. Take the time to get to know their story, and you’ll get to know the person also.
After all, we are One Body, right? To know your neighbor is to know yourself.
Great piece. Thanks!
You’ve found your style, Matt. Come back South and find more stories. We’ll be waitin’ on ya!
This is a great piece, and I loved it. I sympathize with your being a Northern “not sharer”, since I am as well. But that’s what you have to love about the South; they actually like sharing, and want to know about you. We definitely don’t do that up here, and you hit the nail on the head with we respond, we don’t share. Keep up the good work!
Defintely a story worth sharing..and you did it beautifully. Will be thinkng about this all day! Oh, and did you notice in the combox? Not
one of those anti-Catholic trolls showed up…not yet, at least! Not enough blood in the water here. Keep telling us more stories like this
...worth far more than all those “theology lessons” as far as evangelizing.
Best column I’ve read in a long time. Thanks!
Matt, you made me homesick. May have to make peach cobbler today in a fit of southerness.
Great story! Really enjoyed it. From a fellow non-sharer.
Wow, this story made my day! Thank you for taking the time to tell it.
Are you sure he wasn’t an angel? God works in mysterious ways and, as you know, there are absolutely no coincidences!!!
You know something, I read a log of Catholic Blogs, and most of the time I come away knowing all that is wrong with the world. Today, I will also remember that there is an awful lot right with the world.
Best thing I’ve read on the interwebs in a long, long time.
I’m “native New Englander,” but due to the fortunate circumstance of having been born into a military family, I was able to travel overseas (Morocco in the fifties, West Germany a decade later) and throughout all those years as a dependent, I was fortunate to have made friends from both sides of the Mason Dixon line. Let’s face it, when your parents grew up on the same street in an old mill-town in western Massachusetts, you’re already a bona fide member of a “distinct demographical minority.” Add your Catholic upbringing to the mix and you’re really standing out like a proverbial sore thumb amongst a VERY predominantly Southern and Protestant crowd. LOL. I can still remember when my fifth grade class had to recite the Our Father, King James style, of course, and my “suddenly noticeable” muted voice when the prayer reached the ending “... for Thine is the Kingdom and the Glory ...” sentence was said out loud by my teacher and most of the rest of the kids in my class; add another sore thumb. Talk about culture shock, I entered this class in November after transferring from a parochial school outside of Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH. Surprisingly enough, the Catholic kids were the toughest to figure out and deal with, especially on the playground. (Maybe we figured we had to prove ourselves to be the toughest on the playground so those “cracker kids” wouldn’t “mess with us.” Hmmm, don’t a lot of Catholic—“adults”—especially those living in the middle-Atlantic big cities and urban states and metro-areas like greater Boston in New England, play similar games, especially in politics when they devour their young, middle aged and elderly?)
I attended and graduated from Biscayne College, now a part of St. Thomas University in Miami; then run by the Augustinians when I was there in the early Seventies. Then the school was very small, not coed yet (except for classes which we shared with Barry College) and the dorms were dominated, no, make it DOMINATED by loud, brash, big-mouth’d nawtheasterners, mostly from New Joisy, New Yawk, Philly, and some from Boston. Only two of us came from western Mass, yours truly from a rural college town (half-college/half-farming town), and the other hailed from Springfield and attended the diocesan high school. I was the hick from the sticks who attended a public school. Totally untermensch material.
By sharp contrast, the few Southerners, and by this I mean, native, locals with actual multi-generationally firmly planted familiar ROOTS, in Dixie’s soil, were the nicest and most accommodating classmates; as were Midwesterners, too. Because we weren’t “day hops” we didn’t get to have all that much interaction with the fast growing Hispanic population. (Most of the northeastern guys shunned them ... ,a lot of these guys came from the I-grouping of ethnic Catholics, Irish and Italians, whose views were already shaped by longstanding prejudices against Puerto Ricans, whom they deemed “PRs.” (But I dare say few of them had nearly the same level of interaction with Puerto Ricans as I had already living in a valley where many had resettled from New York and Hartford.)
Martin Luther King said the most segregated hours in the country are found on Sunday mornings. He could’ve added accurately, the most segregated and clannishness found in any one single religious group in the country is in the Catholic Church as it existed in his time and still pretty much to this day.
Multi-culturalism? Old stuff. Now the only thing I can’t figure out about southerners is why they keep buying into that old plantation/share cropper mentality when it comes to economics. They’ve long learned how to welcome people from more races and religious backgrounds than the many northern urban states, that are still hobbled by ethnic tribalism, (especially New England’s cities!) ... but ohhhhhhh, let a union organizer, even a white native-grown southerner whose ancestors might’ve commanded units under George Washington or Robert E. Lee no less ... and watch the temp and humidity drop like a central Florida sinkhole! LOL.
Great story, Matt, and well written, too. Thanks for brightening up my day.
Your story made me start humming Louie Armstrong’s “What a wonderful world…..” Thanks!
wonderful lesson.next time Iam not saying fine. its great to share with people.especially our Christian faith.
Matt, you are right, “southern hospitality” is something to be experienced by everyone. We lived in Alabama for 10 years and while I don’t miss the heat and humidity (you know how we have been suffering for a couple of weeks of 90 plus in the Midwest - well it is like that from May - October in Alabama) I do miss the friendliness. We are in the Midwest and while people here are friendly, they do not have the manners that people in the south were TRAINED to have by their mothers and fathers. Unfortunately, we did not do so well training our kids while we were there (maybe one has to be born in the south to have this become such a part of you). I loved reading about your experience - how different it would have been for you if you had been in your own car and not had to wait at the station. Defintely more chances to be a part of the community with public transportation!
Love this! Thank you, from a transplanted Northerner in Virginia.
I usually say “Pretty well” but with an inflection to indicate just how pretty well I’m actually doing.
I agree with the person who wrote about coming away from blogs knowing everything that’s wrong with the Church and the world. I often (usually) feel that way. It was almost as good to read the comments here as it was to read your story. Nothing negative so far.
It makes me wonder, if Saint Francis or Saint Alphonsus had a blog, what would they be writing every day. Probably not everything that’s wrong with the world.
Fine message well told.
Thank you for the story, it makes us reflect on how truly blessed we are in the USA.
Great story! Incidently, I had printed off your “I was the worst Alter Boy ever,” story a while back, meaning to send it to my son. Came across it this morning, and laughed right out loud while I read it again.
This wonderful story had me smiling the whole time.
Your articles are always good, but when you share a real experiance, that’s when you shine the brightest!
Thanks
What a great story. Many thanks for sharing it with us.
Matt -
I can’t thank you enough for such an extraordinary column. Wow, and how true in this day and age. I don’t think I would have made the connections you did with your experiences there. Talk about the Holy Spirit!
What a wonderful story! Thanks for sharing.
As a fellow Philadelphian who visits SC regularly, (and waited an entire day at the Charleston train “station”!) I could relate to your story. I am not a sharer, either, and ALWAYS say “fine”. Thanks to your wonderful column, I will try harder to be more “southern”!!!
Great story,
So many people are so afraid to talk to strangers. If all of us would talk more chit chat(not gossip) say hello and strike just little conversation with strangers we would have a lot less strangers in this world and get along much better.
So very beautiful. Truly- it is. Thank you for writing this and sharing with us… we all need to read stories like this!
Wonderful story! Thank you for sharing this. It almost seems too idyllic to have happened so recently. I didn’t know quaint train stations existed anymore outside of books. :)
Wow, that really makes me think about asking people “polite” questions in the future. I need to listen, actually listen to their answers - you never know what you might learn. Absolutely beautiful story!
This just made my soul happier…
Great story! But “Silence can sometimes be selfishness?” You have young kids and probably have been fed the “stranger danger” routine. Or perhaps you have experienced the way the most innoucuous statements made up here in the north can be used as a weapon by someone with an axe to grind. So don’t be too hard on yourself. I grew up with the “You never know when you are entertaining angels” philosophy and sadly my kids panic if I speak to someone I don’t know. Our generation had it right and your story is just evidence of that. Thanks for sharing!
Silence can sometimes mean selfishness.
Thank you…......this really strikes a chord with me. Beautiful piece.
When I am quiet I am guarding myself. Although, if I take the time to share it usually becomes a grace moment.
Brilliant piece. And so well written - you should write a novel.
Love this story! I am going to make sure I smile “extra brightly” as I say hello to all of the morning joggers on the forest preserve pathway!
Brilliant. I just loved this.
For some reason Blessed Mother Theresa comes to mind when reading your story. Fantastic story to share with your kids as they grow. Thanks for sharing with us.
This is a keeper! Thank you for sharing. Reminds me of my beloved mother, who could board a plane and become instant friends with everyone sitting around her.
I’m a writer, and this one piece I wish I’d written. Unforgettable. Thanks for sharing.
This was a wonderful story, and perhaps that man really was an angel.
Last Christmas eve my daughter and son in law attended candle-light services with me at my church (Methodist). Following the service my daughter and I waited at the front of the church for my son in law to bring the car around.
My daughter noticed an elderly black man,shabbily dressed, standing across the drive-way, just watching. She crossed over to him, gave him a $20 bill and a big hug with a wish for a Merry Christmas. He just kept saying “How did you know?, how did you know?”
Was he the angel or was my daughter the angel? I don’t know, but it touched my heart, as this story did. So glad it was posted.
Loved your story.May I share?I’m from the south.Yes what you experienced is truly who we are.I’ll never forget the first trip I ever took north.I dreaded it.I’d always heard how distant rude and even dangerous northerners are.Boy was I in for a surprise.Not only were they fairly friendly they didn’t laugh at my drawl.Maybe that drawl and the fact that I didn’t act any different[well for the most part]than I did back home set there mind at ease.Irony is, it was new york city, not a rural area.Had it been a rural area, I wouldn’t have been as surprised.
Thanks for sharing about the clannishness of ethnicities in the north.I’d always suspected that it was there but very well hidden.
Any of you thinking of visting the midatlantic get ready for people who will greet you say good morning/evening exc.Will say please thank you.Will help you pick up dropped belongings/papers.Call you maam sir exc.
Yes we are taught that.It’s also reinforced because everyone here is like that.We however do mean it.Its simply who we are.
Sunny, what a nice post! I’m not sure a drawl ever set anyone back up in New England. A very soft Charleston, SC drawl never impeded my sister-in-law while teaching English in MA’s second smallest school system, and most of the kids had Polish last names. They had a great kick teaching her(!) how to properly pronounce their last names. MY SIL’s long returned to her Low Country roots but she can still teach me a few things, and neither of us are Polish. A drawl’s the last thing any (intelligent) New Englander or Northeasterner should hold against a Southerner given the fact that understandable English is a second language for most folks living in the eastern part of Massachusetts, we’re haahhhhdly the ones to look down our noses with cold flinty looks and rolling eyes. Boston’s Maay-uh Thomas Menino isn’s nicknamed “Mumbles” without reason.
Forgive my biases, but only people in western Massachusetts ... from the Connecticut River valley to the Berkshires still speak the English language in a way most Americans won’t find any need to ask for a nearby translator. Alas, Bahston ... and even worse ... woohstah, eg Worcester, habits of mangling good English are becoming more prevalent; thus leading me to belive it’s high time for an updated version of Dan’l Shay’s Rebellion to break out ... only this time with a successful ending.
It’s not just ethnic clannishness one has to deal with up here; we’re just pretty damn parochial, even with in a small six-state region. Well, make it five. New Hampshire might as well be from another galaxy. BTW, I can understand a DownEast accent and find those supposedly “cold” and “off-putting” Yankees even far more friendly than most people I’ve run into in my own “Happy Valley” of western Massachusetts; a geological rut that’s been packaged by the local Chambers of Commerce as the Pioneer Valley. Yes, pioneering for inventing more ways to discourage outsiders from investing and staying here. (Yet, to catch the local news, it never ceases to amaze me that the big honchos in public relations, politics and business keep scratching their heads wondering when things will ever get better again.
Maybe a lack of sincere friendliness has something to do with it. Must be; my wife, who’s got Pilgrim bloodlines, (mine are potato famine-related) even finds frustration with the chilliness our locals are known for.
Yeah, we won the Civil War, but we sure as hell lost the peace a long time ago.
Certainly one of your finest pieces.
Wow! I love your story, the lessons you learned in generosity, Southern hospitality, and the value of casual conversation with complete strangers. I totally understand your “practice for Hell” way of describing the sometimes sweltering heat in Virginia. Both of my parents and my husband are from Upstate New York, where I don’t do winters but love it in the summer.
I also find it amusing that you say you’re not much for sharing since that’s exactly what you do by writing. I do realize there’s a big difference. My extrovert, super-friendly husband goes to the beach and comes back telling me the life stories of a few new friends he’s made. I go to the beach and would finish reading a great book, possibly write a bit, and leave later not knowing the name of anyone on the beach, except for that kid who just won’t listen to his mother.
Thank you for writing/sharing this story. Faith, hope and charity—pass it on!
This is my first time reading ANY article in this paper, and I’m glad I chose yours! I am from New Orleans, LA-born and raised. I found it “strange” how you were so restrained in talking to people, at all, really. What we consider talking to people is apparently much different than ” you guys” upnNorth! There is nothing uncommon about meeting anybody and walking away with their life story. It’s just the way it is. No wonder I always feel so “weird” on an airplane when everyone is minding their own business and being so tight lipped. Seems rude! Working in the tourism industry ( The French Quarter, etc), I had the opportunity to meet people from every walk of life, from every corner of the earth. They all shared the same tought-” people are So FRIENDLY HERE! We’re NOT LIKE THAT -where I come from!” that always blew me away. I felt sorry for them! No wonder so many people just never went back home! Stayed in or soon moved to New Orleans or nearby! Your description of the man giving away his hotdog is what I seek every time I converse with a stranger when I leave my home-the lessons people teach you. I just assumed that was a part of life and how we learn about God, ourselves and others! Just normal stuff, down here. Ps. We love and own air condition too! I really enjoyed your sharing! Keep up the good work! :)
Matt,
This is great. Your stories are some of my favorites. I envy those kind of people that get everyone talking and at ease and never give canned responses. I try to be more like that. More like angels. Thank you for sharing!
Amen to that…There are angels among us…consider yourself one of them today :)
Thank you!
I loved the story. It was the title that I have a problem with. Why would anyone think that this was something only a Christian would do? Acts of human kindness has no religious ownership.
Cindy, Whether the man knew Jesus Christ or not, to those who do know of Christ, his actions were Christian. No one said only a Christian would do it, only that whether they know it or not, they are acting like Christ.
Matthew,
I just want to thank you for sharing: “Something Beautiful for God”,(St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta, in Malcolm Muggeridge’s book of that name).
John.
Wow, great story, Matthew! I can really relate (except I’d be the one talking and getting you to tell me your life story). :-) God bless!
Matthew, thanks! For me, a South African, it is like the difference between the hospitality of Namibians (to our North west) and people of the Western Cape. Namibians talk easily to strangers but here in the Cape most would think there’s something wrong with you!
Makes me want to stay right where I am, in my own little world. Never talk to people whom I don’t know personally or have not been formally introduced to (except at a concert of course). Never start a conversation, and have been bitterly chastised numerous times for “butting in” a conversation. I keep my mouth shut and say nothing to no one.
Massachusetts.
Dear LRoy, I hope the Angels strike up a conversation with you soon and coax you out of your shell - as only they can:-)! I’m so sorry people have been rude to you in the past.
May God bless you and your family!
Mary.
Matt,
how sure are you that you weren’t scammed? Most of those kind of stories that I have heard at bus stations and other places like that have the same kind of tone. After a few such encounters, I have resolved to buy food for the poor, but no hard-luck stories. Maybe you have hit upon the one real story. It isn’t impossible, but it is RARE. It isn’t a bad idea to use both head and heart.
@LRoy: Written like what many non-Massachusetts, New England, or for that matter, Northeasterners think ... or even want to think of us ... but c’mon L’Roy, you don’t have to think or live like that. And you know it. That’s not what God intends for us. If you just DECIDE to off that damn “New England/Yankee” stereotypical reticence and stick with it, you’ll be amazed at how much your life will improve just on a personal plane, not to mention how a new change in attitude and the way you’ve described yourself coming across (as of now) ... will demonstrate to all who know you and in the future come into contact with you.
Yes, it’s cold up here, our cost of living is higher than most states, but I’d rather be living here and getting something for my money’s worth than up in NH where the people can indeed be as cold and nasty as a bad day in Tuckerman’s Ravine. (Try topping THAT! LOL) All kidding aside, things are only as bad as we want to perceive them as being “x degree bad” and instead of beating that attitude by taking St. Paul’s advice with being content ... and you’re convincing me you’re content in your “little world” because it’s getting smaller ... or we can widen our world by dismantling our walls.
I’m convinced that far more than our cost of living, our relatively higher costs in terms of taxes (not including our sales and flat income taxes which aren’t the highest)and a lot of admittedly expensive irritating fees for this and that ... most people who come to Massachusetts, either as business transfers, military transfers or military retirees hoping to settle back in their home towns, leave the state because of the horrible reputation too many Bay Staters have created for this state. We don’t have to be cold, brutish, quick to snap and all the rest. I’ve lived in both my native western Massachusetts area for most of my life, yet I’ve also worked in downtown Boston for the Federal Court right during the darkest days of the Busing Crisis. You could get on any T-trolley or subway and find “N…..s go back to Africa” scrawled on car walls. And being Irish, I was pretty embarrassed that my own would have forgotten the “No Irish and Dogs Need Apply” so quickly.
BUT THEY DID NOT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.
People are turned off by this and leave in droves. Is this what you want more of for the Commonwealth, our region and God forbid, if it spreads beyond our very parochial-minded six state region ... the rest of the nation?
I’m sure you don’t. Not if you take some of the very base, bare-bottom, and BEST principles of our Faith which Jesus taught in his Sermon on the Mount and on Calvary just before he died. “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they have done.” We, and I include myself, have no idea how powerful our words and gestures are, and how cutting they can be. I’ll admit in several posts in these Register comboxes I’ve been pretty tough on pols, ideas and even the Sunbelt, with its love of min. wage jobs and its “plantation/sharecropper mentality,” but I’ve specifically pointed to it because it reflects a certain mindset that has long been responsible for keeping the poor and minorities stuck in low-wage jobs and given the shaft when it comes to funding public education. But do I believe all Sunbelters want to see this continue? Far from it.
C’mon, what do you say? let’s give our Commonwealth a better image. Okay?
Beautifully written excellent piece. When you see Jesus Christ in the least of them you will find him. I am inspired and will keep myself open to times of grace, as you experienced.
You are a wonderful storyteller…The piece was really inspiring…
Ben, sometimes you just know. Maybe not all the time, but sometimes.
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