Community II

More thoughts of community.

I love my cane.  Neither because I need it (yet) nor because it is a self-defense tool.  Because it allows me to look less harmful.  Let’s face it, 6’4” roughly 400lbs, I’m never going to look harmless.  I’m an ogre, and comfortable with that. When it’s warm, Rocky helps that image of looking less harmful.  “Wow big scary guy- awww, he has a cute dog!”

Yesterday I noticed a U-hall down the court.  Given that tis not the season to be moving, I slipped on my jacket and grabbed my cane to go down and check.  I figured if it was something wrong, I’d come home and call the police.  “Crazy, not stupid.”  When I knocked on the door, the cane did its job.  Home owner sized me up, saw me leaning on my cane, and accepted that I’d come down to make sure he wasn’t being robbed.  He also had a few little kids.  Unless it’s a highly trained crew of midgets, it’s all good.  So I meet a new neighbor and make sure everything is safe.

For those of us who remember the original Knight Rider, the motto of the show always resonated with me.  “One man can make a difference.”

In a world where we’re told it takes a villiage to raise a child, I think that gets forgotten a lot.  I’m home early because of snow.  Heading out into the parking lot I spent time not only clearing Orishi off, but while she was warming up, I helped brush the snow off of some of my coworkers cars and got them out of where they’d been plowed in.

One car got stuck and I couldn’t muscle it out alone.  I went over and rapped on the door of another worker who was warming his truck up and asked for help.  He asked me who I was helping and if he knew her.  I said, “Does it matter?  She works here.”

Really that’s what it came down to.  She’s a coworker, she needs help and it will take two minutes of time you’re spending on your ass warming the truck up. To his credit he did help. How anyone can not help someone you’re going to see daily, even without knowing who it is?

And that’s what being a man means.  You help the people who need help.  Not for payment, not for recognition.  Because you can.