The cashier in the grocery store was a smiling, hospitable young lady who appeared to be in her early-to-mid 20s. She was chatty, but in a kind and welcoming way. As she rang up my items, she talked about how busy the store was … which led to how busy the local traffic was … which led to how she had moved away from her hometown because it had become far “too urban and busy.” So, she pulled up her lifelong roots in order to find the peace and quiet of country living (about twenty miles from the store where she works). I asked about her hometown, expecting it to be Charlotte or Raleigh (i.e., “urban and busy”). She answered that she had grown up in my hometown.
When I was a kid, the population of that town was just over 10,000. Everyone knew everyone. Half of them were kin to one another. There was one high school. The local hospital had a total of three surgeons. If you needed a dermatologist or orthopedic specialist, you had to drive to Greensboro. According to the cashier, all that’s changed now. In her opinion, the comfortable little Lake Wobegone I remember has become Gotham City. The young lady observed that there are now over 27,000 people living there. “Wow! All in one town?,” I joked. She failed to see the humor. “Local companies are expanding,” she complained, “eating up the landscape. They’re talking about widening highways.” Then came the coup de gras, the exclamation point to it all, the sure sign of rapid growth out of control. “Why,” she said, “they even have a Starbucks!” Who wouldn’t flee for the hills given the alarming reality of such a concrete jungle?
It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? My wife and I spent ten years living in New York City, just up the avenue from the United Nations Building. Thus, to my ears, what the cashier described sounded more like comfortable Mayberry than crowded Manhattan. The five boroughs of NYC have over 8 million residents and God only knows how many additional visitors every day of the year. There are literally Starbucks across the street from other Starbucks. 27,000 people? They get that many folks in Madison Square Garden for Billy Joel concerts. I loved the energy of the city, the constant opportunities to go, to do, to see, to enjoy. I suspect in that environment, however, my cashier would’ve thrown herself off the Brooklyn Bridge. She prefers quiet – watching sunrises over misty meadows while sipping coffee after her animals are fed … no blaring horns or backed up traffic … no masses of humanity shoving their ways into subway cars … clerks and cashiers who look you in the eye and chat. Some love “busy.” Others prefer “peace.” One loves Beethoven, another Beyonce. You eat cannolis, I eat Krisy Kremes. Com si, com sa. Neither is right or wrong. It’s all a matter of individual tastes and personal perspectives.
What I need to do in so many areas of life, I suspect, is to be more open and less dismissive. In other words, I would benefit by considering the perspective of others and why they see, feel, and believe as they do. I love going to ball games. It wouldn’t hurt me sometimes to go to an art museum instead. I grew up on Carolina Beach Music and still listen to it all the time (the Drifters, the Tams, Barbara Lewis, the Embers, etc.). I have learned, though, that those who say, “I love baroque music” have a strong argument to make. An hour spent listening to Bach or Handel can soothe and inspire in ways that the O’Jays were not intended to match. An evangelical who goes to a church with a rock praise band and a preacher in jeans who says “Bro” and “Yo” frequently can occasionally be exposed to a sacred ethos that is soul-enhancing by attending a high church Episcopal mass. Murder mysteries are fun to read in ways that historical biographies can’t match. But, the latter is educational in a way that the former will never be. Lasagna is tasty. Salads are healthy. You get my drift. We are not meant to be clones of one another. Because I like something that you don’t (and vice versa) does not mean either of us is wrong. We’re just different. And, if we don’t become haughty or arrogant about our differences (“Mine is better, yours is inadequate,” “I am right, you are wrong”) then we can all learn and grow from one another. Rigidity and condescension are not virtues. They are cages in which we lock ourselves away from growth and maturity.
The young lady at the grocery store has inspired me to spend a day soon in my hometown. I want to look up some old friends. I want to drive by some places that, back in the day, were like holy ground to me. I want to see the one high school that is still there, the one that prepared me for all the rest that was to come. I want to turn onto Cliff Road and get a look at the house where I grew up, a house where love lived in such a clear and formative way. I’d like to go to the Little Castle or Robin Hood Restaurant for a cup of coffee, but those places closed years ago and now exist only in my memory. So, I suppose I’ll need to step into modernity and get a cup at Starbucks, instead. When I do, though, I am pretty certain that the young cashier will be frowning. She probably uses her grandma’s percolator. Percolators make really good coffee. Com si, com sa.