Meet Me Out in the Streets, Baby!

Meet Me Out in the Streets, Baby!

Time to hit the streets. Lots of talk these days about Americans getting along with each other. Now, I'm no Einstein or Shakespeare, but I sure know one thing--it sure is nice to take a walk and say hello to folks. Or get on my bike. Hit the golf course. Yoga it up (Update: my yoga teacher told me Sunday is National Friendship Day!). It is all about getting out there and meeting and greeting people. All kinds of folks.

Here is what I like to do. I give the 'thumbs up' to joggers, and when I get a smile on their face, there is a human touch. I say 'Morning' to the folks picking the weeds out of their garden, like the lady today. With her sunbonnet and radio, she was having a grand time. So I told her it looks great; I told her I like doing that especially when I need some alone time. Feels like I am out there in 'nature'--at least my little piece of it. She smiled and said, "Same with me." Funny how we connected and we didn't think about whom we were voting for or what music we would prefer.
Then there is the guy walkin' his chocolate lab. I stopped and let his four year old 'pup' lick me like an ice cream cone on this warm summer day. We smiled and knew, that in his case, a dog can me a person's best buddy. There are the construction guys who are bustin' their butts doing road work. I thanked them for what they were doing for the neighborhood. They both broke into smiles and thanked me for noticing. Then they laughed and said, "Wait 'til ya get the bill!" I figure that's the price we pay for a government that works, so no big deal.

I'm just a guy walkin' the streets or the fairways. I'm trying to 'work those wedding tables.' The best I can do is try to get to know my neighbors...in a larger sense. Too often we live in a world of fences. Robert Frost waxed philosophical about the danger of walls and fences made of stone and brick. My parents, Tessie and Louie, used to speak about the good ol' days back east where people knew their neighbors. But for them it wasn't a geographic limit to knowing people on their street. They knew people wherever they roamed. Maybe that is something we've lost, and with it, an understanding that we sometimes are our brother's keeper...or at least our streets can be a place where 'everybody knows your name.'

It's a lot easier to heed the wisdom of Atticus Finch as he tells his daughter, Scout, that sometimes you have to walk in someone's shoes to know what their life is like.

I bet you all have been waiting for a Springsteen reference. One of my favorite songs ends like this:
When I'm out in the street
I walk the way I want to walk
When I'm out in the street
I talk the way I want to talk
Baby, out in the street I don't feel sad or blue

Baby, out in the street I'll be waiting for you