Oz
Last
week, Ernie and I made the seventy mile trip from Lexington
to Owenton to tend to a little business. We had several
stops on our do-list, not the least of which was meeting up
with a friend. We wanted to give her a copy of an old
picture of particular interest to her family, and she in
turn had several she wanted Ernie to see. His hobby is
computer restoration of historic photographs, and we both
are local history buffs, so we make time for such
encounters whenever and wherever we can.
We got away from home later than planned, so we missed her
at lunchtime at McDonalds. Through the miracle of cell
phone communication, however, we caught up with her on the
sidewalk in front of Stuart Bowling’s insurance agency on
Owenton’s courthouse square.
It was a bright, clear day, and we stood and talked on the
empty sidewalk for twenty minutes, maybe longer, first
discussing the details of the old pictures, then moving on
to philosophical observations. (People who enjoy historic
artifacts tend toward the profound, I’ve noticed.)
Finally, we made our good-byes, and proceeded to an office
down the street. We’d been there about thirty minutes when
someone rapped on the door.
It was Stuart Bowling holding out a phone to my husband.
“I believe this is yours,” he said. “Someone found it on
the sidewalk near my office and brought it in to me to see
if it were mine. It wasn’t, but I dialed “home” in the
phone’s directory, and got your answering machine.”
We were so flabbergasted --Ernie had not yet missed his
phone – that neither of us thought to ask Stuart how he
knew where to find us. We simply took in thanking him as
profusely as we could. Cell phones, even an older one like
Ernie’s, are expensive. And he’s come to rely on having a
phone in his pocket. Its absence for the day or so it might
take to purchase another would have been unsettling.
The story could end here with a public acknowledgment of
our graditude to the nameless person who found our phone
and to Stuart who brought it to us. Both went out of their
way to be helpful when no one would have known the
difference if they hadn’t bothered. It didn’t surprise me
though. It’s what comes naturally to Stuart and to most
people I grew up with in Owen County.
But the story doesn’t end there. I posted a brief account
of Stuart’s good deed on my Facebook status that evening.
By morning my inbox was flooded with near thirty comments
all ending in exclamation points. (I should mention here
for the unconnected that the exclamation point, driven into
exile by English teachers a generation ago, has been
granted asylum at Facebook. It’s the workhorse of social
networking.)
“Amazing! That is KY for you!!” an expatriate wrote.
“Awesome! What a lovely place!” another said. And so it
went, one after another. Had Stuart and the anonymous
passerby landed our plane safely in the freezing Hudson
River, I don’t think the Facebook comments could have been
more effusive or incredulous. Has a simple deed of kindness
and honesty become so rare, I wondered?
Coincidentally, I ran across the obituary of Aaron Rueben a
few days later. I didn’t recognize his name, but like most
Americans I’m familiar with his life’s work. Born in 1914,
he grew up in Al Capone’s Chicago, and got an early start
as a comedy writer in radio for the likes of Milton Berle,
George Burns and Gracie Allen. From the 1950s through the
1980s, he was associated with many of television history’s
most successful series. He’s best remembered, however, as
the producer of “The Andy Griffith Show” -- a cultural
touchstone that still airs regularly in re-runs 50 years
after its 1960 premiere.
"I'm frankly surprised at this show having become an icon,”
Ruben said in an interview with Morrie Gelman in the
Archive of American Television. “My theory,” he went on to
say, “is that the Griffith show is like the grown-ups' Oz.
It's the land of, 'Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful to live in
a town with no drugs, no crime, no gangs, no violence, [
where] people greet each other, people are kind to each
other.' . . . That's why grown-ups love that show."
I’m reminded, however, that the Wizard of Oz turned out to
be an illusion, and that Oz was plagued by the Wicked Witch
and her evil monkeys.
So even in Mayberry – even in Owenton – bad things happen
that wouldn’t have to happen. Drug and alcohol abuse are as
familiar to small town Kentuckians as to big city dwellers.
Crime, even the violent sort, spreads like kudzu throughout
the highways and byways of our country. Our own locally
grown sage, Wendell Berry, writes of American culture, "We
have pretty much made a virtue of selfishness as the
mainstay of our economy, and we have provided an abundance
of good excuses for dishonesty."
I’m not sure how much you or I can do about that. But we
can try to live by the Golden Rule. We can say hello. We
can be kind. Thank you Stuart – and Aaron Ruben - for
reminding us.