Brief Contact

Folks, we've all been through it. That super awkward moment when you're on the bus/train/plane/just hanging around in a public place, and someone will not stop talking.  Today, this happened to me, but before I give you too many prejudgment judgments, let me give you this guy's story. Despite his continuous chattering, he actually had a pretty cool story.

I got onto the pretty much empty bus and picked a seat on the upper level so I could have a better view of the trees and sky as we rode for an extensive 6 hours. Being the blond that I sometimes tend to be, I left my homework, my laptop, all my books, and my headphones in the the bag below the bus. No worries thought! I had my iPod with me. What a lot of help that was without headphones. After about five minutes, I knew this was going to be a long ride, but little did I know I was about to get to hear an interesting life story.

The man sitting two rows in front of me was talking to the woman across the aisle, exchanging dreams and life stories. Naturally, her easy giggles and his outlandish stories registered merely as flirtation in my mind; however, after the irritation passed, I began actually listening to their stories. She was a student, and he...get this...he was a hitch-hiker.  Because I came into the story late, I missed why he was doing this, which stinks. Basically, he traveled from California to Texas to Florida to Maine and back to Cali.  We intercepted paths on his way from Florida to Maine.  For the sake of his privacy, I won't go into much detail about his personal experiences. I will however, explain why it struck me.

This man knew exactly what he was doing and how people would perceive him for it.  He knew there would be people he ran into who would tell him exactly what they thought about his current lifestyle (and he had several examples of when this was true). However, he respected their opinions and treated them with the respect he wished they had treated him with.  He spoke with educated language rather than speaking in a disrespectful stereotypical "vagrant" style.  He said that this made all the difference when he did encounter charitable souls.

This is what really caught my attention. Not his attitude towards people who didn't agree with his choices.  Not the advice he gave to the girl if she ever decided to hitch hike.  It was the kind people he did encounter. There were people he encountered who welcomed him into their homes, who offered him ways to get to a safe place to stay the night, who gave him warm food, or even a kind word.  Most hitch hikers are seen with a negative viewpoint especially since movies like The Hitcher and stories like these were published on a large scale, yet there were still people willing to put Hollywood aside to help this man out.  While I don't recommend that we all welcome strange men into our cars and homes, I think that after the necessary precautions were taken by these adults, it was charitable for them to help him out in his time of need. When the time comes, don't forget that Christian charity!

P.S. He said the nicest people he met were in Louisiana woo hoo! LA pride ;)