Say What?

I admit it. I'm incorrigibly, irredeemably, implacably...well...friendly. Yes, I do talk to dogs -- why are their people not doing so? -- as well as to the strangers those fine "woofies" walk. Near the end of a stroll in my urban neighborhood during an especially beautiful twilight, I was even more richly rewarded than usual (and that's a bunch).

"Lovely, isn't it?" I hear myself say, crossing a neighborhood street in the oncoming path of a fellow-walker, he headed south to my west. "Perfect!" says this twenty-something African-American man dressed to-the-nines in the latest hip-hop gear. I can't resist adding, "And even better since November 4th!" He grins, we both hoot.

I already have my earmuffs back on when I realize he's said something more. Chastened for my earlier harsh thoughts toward others isolated from the audioscape by earphones, I take off said earmuffs and turn around. "Pardon?" I say.

"Now we have to do OUR part!" he waves, grins and disappears. Right.


Our "Conversations with People at the Leading Edge" are an even more predictable source of constant and profound surprise. Come see for yourself. We have excerpts on YouTube (look for "sunlightoxygen") and you can hear complete programs on our PaulaGordon.com website.

Comments

[DavidFinke]

Paula, you revolutionary, you!

Imagine. The nerve! Actually TALKING to people on streets. Even those of a different skin color. Are you out of your mind?! What is this country coiming to?... people not staying in their "comfort zone" (a/k/a self-imposed ghettos.) Saying things to people out in PUBLIC... to whom you've not even been properly introduced. This could really UPSET normal [sic] social relations. Not your race, your class, your educational cohort -- what are you even THINKING?

At this rate, someone will think that you are taking seriously all that Pledge of Allegiance talk about "ONE NATION, INDIVISIBLE..." (The language of the original pledge, before the 1950s anti-Communist hysteria added a theological assertion, mildly alien to what the Founding Fathers [sic] agreed upon.)

Well, Sister Paula, you better hurry back indoors real quick, lock your doors, not risk talking to folks who might have voted Democratic (for a long time or even the first time), and see if Saxby Chamliss is going to take the cake one more time. I know, I know, "over your dead body" -- but don't take that phrase too seriously.

Seriously, you (We!) have won a HUGE battle, together with your anonymous friends. Now, keep rollin' up the sleeves and go slay a few more dragons.

With admiration, -DHF

Columbia & Arrow Rock, Missouri