DOWN ON THE CORNER THAT YOU WALK EACH DAY

So grumpy this morning.

Among other things that I will not throw Matty under the bus for right now, I had to take out the trash.

I HATE taking out the trash.

I grew up with boys that were on trash duty all the time. It's a boy job. G-man. MAN. Not me in a asymmetrical dress and wedges.

So IV followed me out to the garage, we opened the door and took the trash to the alley. Being that it was trash day, we drug the cans a little further out in the alley. I could hear the trash truck coming.

Mr. Steve came out from next door to drag his cans to the alley also - we shook hands and chatted. Then Miss Rosie, our 97 year old across-the-alley neighbor came out.

"What's going on out here?" she asked.

"We are all watching for the trash man!" replied Mr. Steve.

IV showed her his airplane and we all complimented her earrings and outfit.

Trash truck got nearer. We retreated to our garage to watch.

It really is pretty cool - robotic arm, picks up the cans and dumps them into the top load bin. So we watched as it picked up Mr. Steve's cans, Miss Rosie's cans and then he got to our house.

IV waved, the trash man honked his horn for IV, returned the wave and continued on picking our cans up and dumping them, then moving on to Miss Fran's house.

I remembered something - when we lived in Port Bolivar, my mom always made us wait for the trash men at Christmas time with a bottle of wine for each of them. When they got to our house, we would sing a Christmas carol for them and give them a gift.

"It doesn't matter what you do in life," the MKR would say, "it only matters that you do the best job that you can."

And so I repeated the lesson to IV. He listened and we agreed that being a garbage man was hard work, but fun because you get to honk at people and use the robot arm.

When we got to school, we told the teacher what we watched that morning. She sort of shook her head and said "wasn't it stinky?"

IV looked at her carefully. That thought hadn't really occurred to him.

"No," he replied, "he dumped it into the roof."

....................................

What would our world be like with a little less prejudice? A little more appreciation? A little more patience?

Thank you for this lesson.