In my last couple of rants, I went from a light hearted piece on working trade shows (which offended some readers) to the seriousness of how our careless use of words or actions can be painful to someone else. In some of your Feedback, I was reminded that a subject that seems innocuous to a man
can be extremely offensive to a woman. I guess this
comes under the heading, "Never criticize a woman
until you've walked a mile in her heels!"
This reminded me of an incident from my childhood
that made an impression on me that still haunts me after more than 50 years. I was a Tenderfoot Boy Scout at the time, about 12 years old and in the early stages of discovering girls, that glorious rite of passage that
goes with the awkwardness of puberty.
Our Boy Scout troop had just hosted a hayride the previous Saturday night, which concluded with a dance at the gym.
This was a wonderful event because it gave us an excuse to ask a girl out (even if our mothers had to drive us over to pick them up)! If a girl really liked us, we might get to put our arm around her, and if we were really lucky,
we might even get a kiss.
At our next Scout meeting the following week after this particular get together, there was much banter and
repartee' as we rehashed the details of the previous
Saturday evening and teased each other about our
lack of savoir faire with the young ladies. At some point,
our Scout Master singled out one young man and
chided him about wearing his "brogans" to the dance. The next thing I knew, there was a dead silence in the room.
I turned around and saw this youngster with his head
buried in his arms on the table, sobbing uncontrollably.
It didn't take a second to realize that those brogans
were the only shoes this youngster had to wear. His father was in prison and his mother was just not able to keep up with the financial strains of their large family.
I learned this lesson when I was 12, but none of us are ever too old or too smart to be reminded: We are all just spirits passing through this earthly realm. What we can afford to wear, or how we look has nothing to do with the human soul inside each of us. So I will close with a quote my dear mother gave me when I left home for college in the Fall of 1967. Ironically, she wrote this on the back of a nursery shipping tag which fit perfectly in my wallet:
I shall pass this way but once; therefore any kindness I can show or any good I can do, let me do it now.
Let me not neglect it or defer it,
for I shall not pass this way again.
