Here Comes Everybody

    Nancy and I spent the other day in Brooklyn. First we went to a Christmas party held at a renovated firehouse in Red Hook that houses a drop in and counseling center for firefighters & their families, other first responders and veterans. The lively crowd of active duty and retired firefighters, families and staff was having a great time.

     We then moved on to a vegetarian restaurant in our old neighborhood of Park Slope. Great lunch and interesting people watching as the Slope is always known for its characters. Think of it as Santa Cruz East.

     Finally we went to Bay Ridge to a big clothing store, Century 21, that has great prices on some really good things. Here's where an excellent day began to touch my spirit even more. In that crowded and item packed store was an array of people from all over the world, all sizes, colors, ethnicities and probably at least twenty different cultures. African, Russian, Arab, Indian, Chinese, Latin American were just some of the folks both on staff at the store and shopping like us. The Brooklyn young people on the store staff were themselves a great mix of these cultures and races. And they couldn't have been warmer, more helpful or more patient with the sometimes frazzled crowd.

     There was a day when that sort of experience would be a sure set-up for me to lose it or, at best, to barely hang on by my fingernails. Crowded places full of determined and impatient people would put me on edge and layers of civility and respect would peel off me in a heartbeat. Not this day.

     This day I was afforded the grace to be grateful and appreciative. One man patiently pushed his disabled partner in her wheelchair all around a crowded set of aisles. Clerks were polite and cheerful even when their customers weren't so much. Lots of folks, including us, spent significant time finding just the right size or color of sweater or shirt to gift someone else. Outside a Bay Ridge volunteer ambulance corps was doing a fundraiser, supported by a radio station remote truck sending the sounds of pop music up and down 86th St.

     If that afternoon of shopping were a microcosm of this country these days, or even of the whole world, there's a lot to celebrate. Don't we all look grand? as my Irish grandmother used to say. Don't we, indeed.

     Here comes everybody.