It began with the trip to my home in Louisiana. It is summer and there is a family reunion. Of course, I went, wanting to see aunts, uncles, and cousins to the fourth or fifth degree.
We met at the usual place and talked, and ate, and tried to explain what was meant by “first cousin once removed.” Nobody needs to know, but an astounding number of us at our reunion seemed very eager to figure it out, so that we could properly place that “mystery child” or an almost-forgotten cousin who no longer shows up. Who can blame them since we always hold these things on the hottest day of a Louisiana summer?
We, who always show up, secretly think that “no shows” are wimps. What’s a little heat? Don’t forget our childhood, with it being hotter than the inside of a hair dryer, was spent without a shred of air conditioning! Wimps!
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Maybe it’s time to ignore stereotypes and look around.
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Coming back from this annual event, which, for some crazy reason, I really love, brought me into the Philadelphia airport late at night. Because it is the “City of Brotherly Love,” I kept my pocketbook close and looked over my shoulder all the way down to the bowels of the airport to the baggage-retrieval carousel. It was a long wait and while waiting, we midnight sojourners kept checking to be sure we were at the right space.
Among us, and my nearest travelers, was a happy Spanish American family who were welcoming a beloved grandmother back from somewhere. She was pushed in a wheelchair by an airport attendant. In her lap was a cheery welcome bouquet brought by loving young folks. Pictures were being made and the feeling of unease I had felt by being alone was dispelled.
Into this scene of patient waiting for luggage came a heavy-set man wearing goofy-looking shorts, a red baseball cap, and very large backpack. Crowding near this still-unmoving luggage conveyor belt, he began to announce in a loud voice, “I have Asperger’s disease. I am trying to get home to Portland and I need money to stay at the hotel tonight. The airline won’t pay for it because it was my fault that I missed my flight. Won’t you please help me with money.”
He was loud and as late-night travelers, we were a pretty solemn bunch. Immediately my thought was, “This is Philadelphia, a city of people who poke fun at themselves as being hard-hearted people. I bet he’ll get nothing.”
I took out a $10 bill and walked over to give it to him and was among a number of others who were doing the same thing! Wow, it really is the city of brotherly love, I thought. The roll of bills was growing, when the wheelchair attendant spoke to a man next to her. After their hurried, whispered conversation, he spoke just as loudly as “baseball-cap man” had in telling his hard luck story.
“That man is running a scam; he comes here every night and tells his same story. Don’t give him any money,” he said.
The scammer loudly disagreed and declared his story was true. I didn’t believe him and demanded my money back. Others were gathering around him, over his protest. I don’t know if anyone else got his money back because he quickly disappeared into the darkness.
Whatever moral you may come away with from this account, I was bowled over by the generosity of all those people coming from the city with a reputation for toughness. Maybe it’s time to ignore stereotypes and look around for “brotherly love.” You may find it in the most unlikely places.
As for the scammer, that’s on him. “Virtue,” as the philosophers say, “is its own reward.”
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From the Bible: “Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you.” Matthew 7:1
