My brother, who is in a rehabilitation center in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was scheduled to be released on November 23rd, and I made arrangements to go to Pittsburgh to prepare his apartment for his return, and to help him get in-home care as he continues to recover from surgery. I booked passage on the Greyhound bus and walked North on Illinois Street toward Washington Street in downtown Indianapolis. When I came close to the intersection of Washington Street, a young man softly hailed me. “Excuse me sir,” he said, “do you have a roof over your head?”
When my niece retired from the Army, she had a lot of gear that she was going to dispose of, one of which was a heavy camouflage jacket. I asked her if I could have it, and she snorted: “You’ll look like every other homeless man on the street.” I was wearing that jacket over a black hoodie on that cold night in downtown Indy, though I am not certain that the jacket triggered the young man’s approach to me. I told him that I did have a roof over my head, and he started to say, “I’m looking for…” I finished his sentence for him: “Someone to help.” He replied that he was looking for a homeless man. “Well, “ he continued, “a homeless man with two dogs.” The young man was carrying a bag that sagged with its contents. I thanked him for asking and looking, and as walked East on Washington Street, he turned back to me and said, “No; thank you.”
This past summer I was walking south on Shortridge Road toward Washington Street, where I planned to catch a bus toward home. I was carrying two cloth reusable grocery bags that I had filled at the 10th and Shortridge Kroger, and I was mildly surprised when a man in a yellow “open air” Jeep slowed beside me and asked, “Do you need a ride?” He was dressed for a summer day in a Jeep, and his smile was friendly; I told him that I was walking to the bus stop at Washington and Shortridge, thanked him for his offer and declined the ride. I thought of the “Jeep man” as I watched the young man searching for the “homeless man with two dogs,” and of my thanks to the men.
Despite the fact that we are a gruff and grumbling country right now, there are still many things for which we can be thankful. A friend from a previous job wrote a series of posts that she called “Little Things,” which were her daily assessments of the small pleasures that tend to get overwhelmed by our focus on the things that irritate us. (I was grateful to have been one of her “Little Things” after she received a copy of a column I wrote about her efforts to maintain a “shiny, heads-up penny” attitude.) On the buses that transport me about the city, I watch and listen to the drivers as they greet passengers, and listen to the departing riders cry out, “thank you” as they exit, a ritual that I have embraced.
So, these things are “thanks” things: My grandson, who tore an important “meniscus” thingy in his knee, is on crutches but is healing well; his sister, the saxophone playing soccer star, is scheduled to sing with her school’s choir at Rockefeller Center on December 11th. And I thank my youngest granddaughter, the “toddlersaurus rex” who rules my house and when asked, obediently hands me whatever she finds and chews.
It isn’t just about the turkey.
cjon3acd@att.net