Something happened this morning that really saddens me. I had to take my trash off early so I could head to work. I volunteered to help my daughter out and drop off my granddaughter at school.
When I pulled up, there was a gentleman opening the doors for the children. I had not seen him before. He was in jeans and a t-shirt and very "normal" looking.
But we live in a society that has conditioned us to be suspect of anything that would have been normal in the past. My first thought was "He doesn't look like a teacher. Why is he just standing their opening the door for the kids."
How sad is that when you cannot even fathom someone simply being nice. When you look at what I am sure was a wonderful man who was being gallant and helping the children coming up the sidewalk to get through the door.
I did ask Shelby if she knew who it was and she said it was their janitor. She said "He is always so nice. We all love him."
Oh, to go back to a child-like heart where we still believed the best of people and we could trust blindly that people are all full of good.
But unfortunately due to many saddened circumstances over time, we have been conditioned to believe that others have ulterior motives and that you can't trust anybody.
Americans need to be on their knees daily praying for those days of yore when neighbors helped neighbors, you could make new friends without feeling like you needed to do a background check and that you could openly speak to strangers and show them kindness without worrying it would lead them to take advantage of you.
What a wake up call today.
