The Old Coot has “Street People” friends.
By Merlin Lessler
I have “Street People” friends. I don’t know the names of
most of them. You pass each other a few times, nod hello and progress to “Good
morning, Nice day, isn’t it.” You don’t need to know each other’s name, their
bio or anything else. You walk, and are happy to see they are still around.
It’s a “hello and a comment,” type of encounter where you respect each other’s
privacy beyond that.
These Street People Friends pop up all over the place. The
contact is life-enriching. I have them in our village in New York where I reside
much of the time; in our neighborhood in Florida, on the beach, in coffee shops
and other places where repeated encounters take place.
One thing I noticed, early on in the Street People
friendship world, was that young people don’t readily engage in this exchange,
for the most part. They walk past as though you are invisible if you are a
senior or a really old coot like me. It won’t change unless you force the
issue, which my friend Scotty in Florida is a master at. He says he’s not satisfied
until he reaches 50 greeting exchanges a day - “Hi” or “Good Morning” or
whatever greeting is appropriate when he’s out walking, biking, jogging or at
the beach surfing. It’s so easy, just do it and you can break the barrier
between the young people’s world and the old coot world.
It's kind of amazing how many people you run into on a
regular basis “on the street.” Move to a new town or neighborhood and walk or
circulate on a semi-regular basis (coffee shops for me) and soon enough you
won’t feel like a stranger. Just say, “Hi! How are you doing today?” and move
on. You’ll never live in isolation again. You’ll have Street People friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment