My travels are seemingly endless and I love it. These past five days have seen me in Ocean Isle, North Carolina attending the wedding of the daughter of one of my high school basketball players from 1976. I love this kid. He still calls me Coach. I have not once been to this part of the country nor spent a great deal of time on the Atlantic seaboard and it was, to coin the vernacular of the day, "awesome".
Two of my dearest long time friends left Ohio a year ago and transplanted themselves in Hilton Head, South Carolina; another part of the United States that was new to me. It's always thrilling to visit new places but it's even more wonderful to spend time with dear friends.
As is the case when I reminiscence about folks from my past life I think of all the good people I've come across. Unless one lives in a community for their entire existence(wouldn't that be a shame)The Lord has placed on this earth hundreds of thousands, nee millions, very outstanding and kindly people. I love the South. I love everything about it, sans snakes and alligators. On the drive down I can't tell you how many times I went into a service station or convenience store and the female clerk would say, "Have a wonderful day, darlin'. Y'all come back soon now".
If I've written about this subject before stay with me because it bears repeating. There have been only two times in my life when I've come across evil, rotten, low-life, hateful, degenerate people. That's not very many in the big scheme of things because I've met literally hundreds of thousands of human beings in my lifetime. I don't want to put myself up against a Donald Trump when it comes to shaking hands but I'd make bet that I'm in the upper 10% of meeting and glad handing men and women alike.
I've always figured that when I meet someone I should be on my best behavior; try and be polite and do the right thing in word and manner. After all, they're giving me their most important commodity and that's their time. We only have so much of it and the older I grow the more I've come to this realization.
My two rotten people in my personal history lived in different parts of my world and I dealt with them in my last job. One was a purchasing manager for Westinghouse Motor Co. in Stratford, Ontario Canada. The other was a maintenance manager for AK Steel Co. in Middletown, Ohio. For my part it was embarrassing because they yelled at me and belittled every word I said. I was never so happy to leave two pieces of vermin in my entire sixty some years. And then guess what happened? In both cases, as I was driving away, I began to think the 'what if' game. 'What if', that morning, each of these people had major trauma in their lives? What if they found out they or their wife had terminal cancer, or that their dog was hit and killed by a car? What if they lost a grandchild due to a horrible disease. You see, I always think it's essential to give people the benefit of the doubt because human beings are thinking and feeling and, unfortunately, sometimes suffering. You know the old saying, "Be kind to those you meet because everyone is fighting some kind of battle".
I happen to be one of the luckiest people on this earth because I've been around long enough to see the good and the bad and, believe me, there are many more kindly people than there are evil ones.
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