Thoughts that Linger
Right after 9/11, when the entire world was still in shock, I was sitting in my office at Union Mission when Laura Webb walked in to ask me something. Laura was the Director of Community Education at the time. Elegant and smart, I never quite understood everything that Laura did because she seemed to do everything. Originally hired to coordinate volunteers, she had much bigger things on her mind so she kept creating new programs that she oversaw.
Laura was extremely popular with homeless men and women and they were forever in her office or helping her do whatever it was she was doing.
On occasions we would give presentations together and she always blew me away at her sweet, melodic, slow delivery of words. Audiences ate her up and she never seemed to lack for resources even though she really didn’t have a budget to manage.
She asked whatever it was she asked me that day then turned to leave.
“Why are you carrying a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket?” I asked.
Turning in slow motion as she always did, she smiled first giving her a look of bemusement then there was this pause as her blue eyes regarded the bucket.
“Oh,” she said as her blond hair came to a stop, draping around her shoulders after she had turned to face me. “The guys took up a collection for 9/11. I’m taking it to the bank to get a check and then going to give it to the Red Cross.”
I stood and peered into the bucket which was full of change.
“They panhandled?” I asked.
She smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
“Hold on,” I exclaimed diving to the phone and calling Skutch, the reporter at the Savannah Morning News that covered Union Mission.
“Skutch,” he said as he answered the phone. Skutch is a terrific reporter but he looks and comes across as an actor in a B movie who is playing a reporter.
“It’s Mike,” I excitedly said. “Listen to this …”
And he did.
A little later he showed up with a photographer. He interviewed Laura, Ronnie, and Robert. They explained that they may be homeless but they are Americans and want to help.
It was front page news the next day with two large color photographs.
A couple of days later it was picked up by Georgia Public Radio. The next day National Public Radio featured the story. The following week it was on Oprah.
So Ronnie and Robert and the guys kept at it. They held a car wash and a garage sale and gave the money to the Red Cross.
It was something to witness.
In a meeting yesterday in Denver the group was asked to share a positive story that occurred in the midst of a disaster. Sitting next to me was Jennifer Hu from New York City who had worked diligently in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Centers. Also in the room were people who had worked in New Orleans and Memphis after Hurricane Katrina … from Maine and the floods … from San Francisco and earthquakes. We are working on recommendations to Congress to improve American responses to natural disasters.
So I told this story.
Ten years later it remains powerful.
The room burst into applause.
It was cited throughout the rest of the day as we worked.
Flying home this morning I am pensive. The story won’t leave my head. I am ready for home … needing to hold it and be held by it. I was frustrated yesterday afternoon because I realized that I probably could have made it home at a decent hour but it was bad planning on my part. The longer the evening went the wearier I got.
“Take care now, beware of thoughts that linger, they’ll take you where you should not go,” sings the major prophet George Harrison.
Thoughts lingered last night and I ended up in places where I should not have gone … in the past, managing regrets and frustrations that are long dead and gone.
This morning I woke longing for my home … and a lingering story that remains very much alive.
