OK, so I think I’m gonna change the blog tagline to ‘Where random rants and poor grammar collide” since this seems to be my new soapbox. Sorry, I just can’t help it. I just… OK, so a couple of weeks ago I wrote this post about how people seem to have stopped caring about each other in a general sense. And I got it off my chest, and I moved on. At least until it was thrown in my direction yet again.

On Thursday night we drove the couple of hours down to Columbus to see my sister graduate from college. About a block from the civic center (where the graduation was to be held) we stopped at a gas station to get a drink and a snack since dinner would have to wait. As we pulled in, there was a woman standing in the entrance to the gas station and we commented on how she really should move. It was lightly raining, about 40 degrees and very dark so it wasn’t exactly a pleasant night to be out in the weather and it was a really bad idea to stand where people might not see you and run you over. But there she was.

Well, I went in to the store and grabbed our stuff. I noted through the window that the woman had come back up to the building and was talking to people. By the time I got through the line and got out she was just leaning on a post not far from our car and had her head down. I was looking at her as I got in the van and Christy told me she thought the lady wanted to talk to me. Puzzled, I got out of the van and approached her. As I neared she looked up and I could see she was crying. I asked what was wrong and if there was anything we could do to help. It turns out that she’d locked her keys in her car there and had been waiting for almost an hour in the cold and rain for a cab that never showed. She had been asking people for a ride to her apartment to get the spare keys for the last 15 minutes. The apartment was less than 10 minute’s drive away and noone would help her out. What’s more amaing is that she hadn’t just been asking for a ride, she’d been offering to pay for one. She had $20 in her hand, asking for a ride and no one would help her out.

Now, it isn’t like we are talking about someone threating. She was all of 5’4″ and I would guess her to be in her 50′s. She was dressed poorly, but more like she was just poor, not like she just didn’t care. But all people going in and out saw was ‘white trash’ I suspect and wouldn’t give her the time of day. We, of course, offered her a ride. She seemed amazed, sadly enough. She seemed more amazed when we refused her money. How sad is that?

As we rode, Rosemary told us she was visiting from Massacuchettes. She’d been in town for a little over a week and was due to go home the following. She’d come down to see her life-long best friend’s son graduate basic training at Ft Benning. Of all the things she told us the first thing she said when she got in the van stuck with me the most. Scrolling through radio stations Christy had stopped on a Christian station and some guy was reading from Romans. She looked up front and said “Oh. Now I know why you guys are helping me out. You know, I hear that Georgia is in the ‘Bible Belt’ but these people need Jesus more than anywhere I’ve seen.” Unfortunately I had to agree.

We got her all taken care of and headed on to the graduation, but it cast a pall over the evening that it took me a while to shake. I’m only just now writing about it because I was too mad to write rationally about it before now. Again, I just have to shake my head in wonder at what we’ve become as a nation. It has me more than a little concerned for my children’s futures.

/g