Rockwellian Dramas

Rockwellian Dramas

A MOMENT OF HUMAN GOODNESS BEFORE THANKSGIVING

By Ed Cullen

As a child influenced by the magazine illustrations of Norman Rockwell, it’s hard to get into a frame of mind to write a Thanksgiving essay in today’s world.

Rockwell would find inspiration in volunteers handing bottles of water to hurricane survivors. He’d see humanity in a child holding a mother’s hand as the woman stood in line for a virus shot. He’d shake his head at TV footage of motorists at filling stations shaking gasoline nozzles at one another.

There were wars, viruses, poverty, and racial injustice in the late Rockwell’s time and he took note in his brilliantly-executed, laconic paintings. What he didn’t have to contend with was the speed at which news and conflicting images now arrive. As we ready for the nation’s second Thanksgiving of the pandemic, the need for kindness and consideration of others are among the things that haven’t changed.

Sometimes, we find ourselves cast as players in little dramas. A scene unfolds before us and we learn by watching. One morning, in a hurry to get home from somewhere, I found myself behind a city bus on busy Highland Road. As the bus slowed at the corner of a Walmart grocery parking lot, an elderly woman stirred herself in the bus stop shelter.

Late morning heat came off the asphalt like a mirage, but the woman and a cart crammed with groceries in plastic bags were real. The woman started pulling at the plastic bags in the shopping cart. The bus, hissing and sighing, came to a full stop, dwarfing the woman and her bulging bags. The line of cars behind my truck was lengthening, eventually stretching to almost two city blocks as the woman struggled with her shopping bags. You knew what was coming. A large bag split at the points where the corners of boxes strained to break free. You could almost hear the groan of passengers on the bus watching the scene below.

If she was a regular rider on Baton Rouge city buses, the old woman knew if she missed this bus she and her groceries would be left in the wet heat a long time before the next bus came. God love her. She waved a hand at the bus driver to go on. She couldn’t free the bag, the key to unlocking the rest of her load.

I can speak for only one motorist, but I’m sure others were thinking of leaving their vehicles to run down to the woman and her trapped groceries. Then, a remarkable thing happened.

A woman in a safety vest, maybe the driver, got off the bus and moved quickly. The Samaritan helped the shopper free her groceries, then helped her onto the bus before returning to the cart. Gray plastic sack by gray plastic sack, the saint in the orange and yellow reflector vest transferred the groceries from the cart to the bus.

The bus doors closed behind the rescuer. The bus sighed and began to move. Moments later, the long line of cars began to follow, a procession in a ceremony of mercy. During the, perhaps, ten minutes it took for this little street play to unfold, there was not a single car horn blast, not from the drivers close enough to see what was going on, not from the drivers so far back they hadn’t a clue what was holding things up. Everyone in that line of cars willed that woman and her groceries onto the bus. The person in the safety vest was the agent of that grocery-moving energy. This time of year, we say, “Why does it take Thanksgiving to be thankful? Why can’t we be thankful, helpful and merciful year-round?”

Of course, we are. When Hurricane Ida plunged thousands of us into hot darkness, the guy who knew how to change oil in a standby generator went to the aid of the neighbor who’d missed that part in the generator salesman’s pitch.

Back yard fishing boats became rescue vessels. Before the official rescue manna arrived, neighbors with food and water were sharing with those hungry and thirsty.

“We’ll get through this,” became a weary battle cry.

Texting a friend in Montana a description of what I was seeing after Hurricane Ida, I had the thought: He’s too polite to ask why anyone would live in the Deep South to go through this misery time and again. The best answer I have is that this is where we live. This is what we know.

We like to say we’re tough, but we know when kindness trumps toughness. Like a scene in a Rockwell painting, acts of kindness speak quietly.