So, I have an hour before I off to do something I have to do, like go to the Doctor. I will run errands only because I have to be out. So, I will blog today while I wait to depart. I feel compelled to share a little something about a phenomena that has been occurring since I moved to Iowa City. It is the most extraordinary thing and honestly, something I have always longed for to happen. Now you may think, what's the big deal and if you do, then please, move on.
I will be sitting in public somewhere. A coffee shop, a sidewalk café, the steps of an academic building, a park, whatever, and people will walk right up to me, and ask if they may sit with me and converse. Now people are stand-offish in general. they don't like to be approached and most find it difficult to just walk up and speak to someone they don't know. Yet, anyone that walks up to me and asks to share a table, a bench (even a meal) is an exceptional humanbeing in my book, and I want to know them. It takes courage for people to do this and it makes me just want to stand right up and hug them.
I was born in the fifties, and grew up in the sixties, a time when people were openly practicing brotherly love. "Flower Power' was on everyone's mind and "Make Love, Not War" on everyone's lips. I am a product of that time. Yet, things have changed quite a bit since then, and now its seems its all about 'ME'. Fortunately, last week, a middle aged man approached me at my table where I was writing and just enjoying the sun. He asked if he could share my table ( yes, there were other free tables) and then offered to share his lunch with me. He was Iranian, was a retired hospital administrator and had two sons, one attending the med school here to become a doctor. We talked for an hour and then shaking my hand and wishing me good day, he departed. Last month, a 90 year old woman approached me at another sidewalk café and asked if she could join me for lunch. I learned a lot about life in the '20s that day and what it was like to live in a big city like Cincinnati. Then the week before that... well... you get it. The only other place this has ever happened to me, was when I traveled abroad, never here in America and I have to say that this type of thing has restored my faith in mankind.I love living here in Iowa City and I suspect I always will. So, I believe it was the Youngbloods, a '60s band that put it best,
"...We are but a moment's sunlight, fading in the grass -
Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together,
try to love one another right now."
~'Get Together' - Chet W. Powers~
Peace