Guardian Angel Needed – Apply Within
I’m a sucker for a hand-out.
I mean, I’m a sucker when I see someone in need: a grubby man holding a hand-written sign on a city corner, a down-in-her luck woman thumbing a ride along a highway, a donation letter in the mail, the kid selling candy door-to-door for his school. Even “help wanted” signs trigger a pathological need in me to walk up and say, “Here I am, what can I do?.”
Some remedies are simple: a dollar out the car window, a favorite sweatshirt donated to the chilled gal, a check written, and knowing in my heart of hearts that I don’t want to work at the gas station even though they’re in need.
But what do you do when you’re confronted with the inability to help, the inability to provide a quick and simple remedy? What do you do when this call for help knocks on your front door?
Twenty years ago, back when the Internet was known as the Information Superhighway, KC was trying to become the next big technology center in the U.S. I worked for a non-profit called the Silicon Prairie Technology Association, a membership organization meant to provide collective insurance and assistance for “angel” funding to fledgling tech companies. We worked out of an old farmstead on the edge of this silicon prairie where a business park was expanding.
One summer afternoon, on a day when the windows were open and a warm breeze whistled through the screens and rustled the curtains, an urgent knock caused the flimsy screen door to shudder against its frame.
He was wearing a soiled, beige trench coat. His shoes were dusty, worn thin. He held a wool Irish cap in his trembling brown hands.
“Do you know where I can pick up a bus?”, he asked me through the screen.
It took me minutes to process what he was saying. A bus? in Johnson County? Gads, was there even public transport like that here? Spoiled 25-year-old.
I invited him in to look through the Yellow Pages. Instead, he needed me to find the phone number, his eyes were large and milky with age. I asked him if he wanted coffee. Declining, he asked if I had anything to eat. It was only after I handed him the apple that I noticed the massive gap between his incisors.
The only bus I could find in the directory was in downtown KC, an area I didn’t know anything about. So, I called a homeless shelter in downtown, hoping they could pick him up and take him. It wasn’t really up their alley, nor was it the next three that I called.
Flummoxed, I decided to drive him to the nearest church. Unfortunately, churches aren’t very busy on late Friday afternoons. Near tears, I hit upon an idea which felt like a betrayal.
As I drove the highway to the police station, the grizzled man told me of his wife, long dead. His children hadn’t visited in years. All he wanted was to see his friend in St. Joseph, Missouri. The bus could take him there. I tried to smile in encouragement.
He returned the smile and said, “It’s all right. God loves you, it’s all right to take me to the police. That’ll be jus’ fine. God bless ya.”
The attending police officer called me later that night to tell me that my new friend had walked from a southern Missouri hospital. He’d been missing for a day or two, and they were coming to retrieve him. He assured me that I did the right thing.
Looking back after twenty years, I know I had a guardian angel with me that day. Who in their right mind would invite a perfect stranger into their car and drive them all over creation? My heart still aches, though, when I think about it, wondering whether I truly helped him out, or if St. Joseph was his last effort to have some love in this world. Hopefully when I get to Heaven, I’ll ask him.
Wanderlustkind, We are Many
I once took a long walk off of a short pier as a toddler. The story I’m told is that in the split second my parents put me down on the ground my diaper-swaddled self raced toward the green Gulf waters. I’ve been doing that ever since, minus the diapers.
Some people are born with wanderlust. I clearly am one of them and am often perplexed by those without the travel gene. My brother, for instance, claims his home is his vacation. He is content not to learn about other cultures, experience new foods and the potential for uncomfortable circumstances. He makes his fun literally in his own backyard.
His wife, born from parents who camp and cruise, has the wanderlust DNA. Fortunately, she is included in her parents’ journeys. She and I also do a little traveling ourselves, with her son and a niece from another brother who also doesn’t travel. This year, we plan to take a roadtrip to the beach via a diamond digging excursion in Arkansas, if time allows.
I count myself fairly adventurous, traveling to Italy without an explicit itinerary, visiting off-the- beaten path Mexican villages, or taking scuba trips half way around the world. But, my wanderlust is tame compared to others.
I have a sister-in-law who likes to travel to third-world countries as a medical missionary. She has seen the poorest of the poor in Dominica and Romania. Her heart yearns to do more, to help more, to be God’s right and left hands. She says it’s her calling.
In that same vein, there are people who spend money to travel to a poor country to assist the locals. However, the helpers ultimately turn tourist to take time to visit the beach, go zip-lining or take in a museum or three. It’s called voluntourism. I’ve done a bit of it when I helped rebuild coral reefs in Florida, but there are so many other opportunities.
Then, there are those enviable kids who right out of college head to Europe, Thailand, the Middle East, backpacking, living and learning among the native people. They get good and scruffy before they come home and have to join “the real world.”
An older, more responsible version of that kind of trip was recently taken by a business associate who recently completed a three-day “walkabout” in southeastern Kansas. He took a bus to one small town, walked the back roads to another town, ending his journey in Independence, Kansas. He did this alone, with a backpack and three bottles of water. It’s not Australia, but it’s a renegade action nonetheless.
Wanderlust guru Rick Steves says it doesn’t matter whether your trip is for hedonism, for health or for helping, as long as you’re getting out and exploring the world. Travel broadens your mind, expands your heart, and may even make the rest of the world not so irritated by Americans.
Whatever your reasons for travel, it’s clearly in your DNA.
It’s been five months since my last long walk off of a short pier, and my wanderlust is raging. I’m hoping to take a roadtrip to Fort Myers mid-June. I can’t afford the time for the back roads, but I’m going to take my time along the interstates and share my journey with you.
Like this:
Sea Life Aquarium and Water Conservation starring Me!
You read about it here and here, now watch it here! See me in my entire geekity, proof that I’m not growing up. (You can also watch The Local Show episode in which this was featured here.)
“Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.”
At dinner the other night, I bent down to pick up my dropped napkin and my sister-in-law blurted, “I see a gray hair!”
My Kind of Arthritis
I was frozen, pinned under the comforter. I woke that morning in 2005 completely immobilized by pain. My first attempt to get out of bed sent stabbing jabs through my neck, my back, and through the joints connecting my shoulders, elbows and knees.
What was happening?
Oral Fixation
The subtitle of my blog, “The Changing Horizons of a Midwestern Girl,” is partly latitudinal and partly attitudinal, if I may borrow from Jimmy B. Since the literal latitude change is in the future, I figured I could broaden my horizons figuratively by going to photography lectures, visiting museums, exploring the outdoors, experimenting in art. I’ve gone to lectures about cave conservation, been guided through Italian cuisine, and even sat through a mind-cracking presentation on UFOs.
Aquariums and Local Conservation – The Best of Both Worlds
[slideshow]Here in the center of the United States, it’s hard to imagine the importance of the oceans. The Atlantic Ocean is nearly 1200 miles away, the Pacific is over 1600, and the Gulf of Mexico is around 800 miles from Kansas City. That’s why the new Sea Life Aquarium is so exciting for locals.
The tropics in my backyard
As often as I can, I’ll be among 5000 of my favorite fish friends, from sharks, rays, parrot fish, sea horses, baby barracuda, an octopus, garden eels, puffers, sea stars, Nemos and Dorys, weird horny horseshoe crabs, etcetera, etcetera.
Why I’m in contention for title of “Meanest Wife 2012″
I didn’t mean to. The project started out small. One thing lead to another, then…
The Missouri River
Every morning as I head to work, I travel along and ultimately cross the Missouri River. Every morning, he shows me a different face, reflecting the mood of the coming day. One day, the milk chocolate muddy water might reflect a benign blue sky passing over the city in a breeze. Another day, gray drizzle dapples the windshield while clouds rest on the sculpted banks. A spring morning or two ago, butterscotch sunshine speared stormy green clouds, stippling an ethereal painting on the river’s surface.
