Of Hobos & the Value of Gifts

For me it sometimes takes three hits to get my attention.

Today, someone wrote me an email and asked me to start the New Year off with something new for my blog. As you will notice it has been a long time. My heart has been heavy and my Muse was destroyed to dust in front of my eyes, never to enter my virtual world again. Such a great loss I was not sure how to move in any direction, so choose to just stand still and let the dust cover me.

Second, something a new friend and told me recently I thought I would write again. He said that I live in the past....this stung me and seemed unfair. I am a writer, a journalist, a chronicler and editorialist who uses the past to stand on as a foundational step for seeing things today. But I try to take feedback like that the he offered as serious as important. So stopped to think about what he might be meaning and if this was actually a good or bad thing.

My conclusion is that I am better for a past of challenge and pain, than if I had had a lovely, protected, safe and pretty past...so I thank God/the gods for their constant and consistent hand in my life and that things have not been easy. I also am grateful that I remember these things in the hopes of not making the same silly mistakes again.

Third, as I went for my race walk this morning, I thought about a blog segment I have been meaning to write for a long time and having watched a video yesterday that had my mind moving in that direction, today was the day. Oh the move was called, Hearts in Atlantis. So here goes.

Of Hobos & the Value of Gifts

When I was about six years old, my Daddy took me on a long trip (only 70 miles in reality) to visit my Grandma Harris. I loved her and every summer I spent at her house for weeks on end.

Daddy and I would prepare for the trip for days, and Mommy would help me pack and eliminate the many extraneous things I would sneak into my little brown and tan suitcase with the brass clasps that would pop open with a special little noise when you pulled aside the little round lever.

We would work together to pack a lunch and lots of koolaid in a thermos (and a fresh bottle of Pepto Bismal for my car sickness). Daddy and I would pile into the car and set out on our next adventure.

The Stranger

As we rounded a bend, there stood a man on the side of the road with his fist out and his thumb pointed in the direction we were going. I thought this was rather strange. Then my Daddy slowed down, stopped the car and began to back up. I thought this was a great adventure and was suddenly alert to something we had NEVER done before.

A man’s face appeared at the window and my Daddy spoke with him. His voice was so deep I thought it was magic. I had been laying on the front seat with my head resting on my Daddy’s leg and now set up properly in the passenger’s seat as any grown up would. Daddy turned to me and said it was alright and that we would be giving this gentleman a ride almost all the way to Grandma’s house. How wonderful!

The man opened the door and I scooted over and he sat beside me on the front seat. He was not dressed very well, there was a strange smell about him that was musty. His clothing seemed not to match in anyway and everything was frayed and tattered, yet somehow clean. His skin was all dark looking and sort of looked like snake skin to me...with a pattern in it with his wrinkles. He had very deep wrinkles, especially when he smiled.

Boring Grown-Up Talk

He was pleasant as he spoke easily with my Daddy about stuff that was not of interest to me, so I began to count the telephone poles to see if I could beat my record and keep track of where we were as we travelled.

There were four little cities we would travel through that I came to memorise for one coming after the other: Crestline, Bucyrus, Upper Sandusky and then Carey. I had taken this trip many times in my young life and knew that when you got to the tree that the Chippewa Indians had bent into a special pointing shape (by taking a young tree and bending it and tying it with heavy ropes), we were almost at Grandma’s.

Now What

As we turned another bend, my Daddy stopped the car and the man turned to me and said he was thankful to spend time with me; that he thought I was a sweet little girl (everyone my entire life seems to think I am “sweet” and someday I will understand what they mean by that) and that he had a gift for me.

He put his old, tanned, gnarled hand in his pocket and pulled out a match box. I knew I was not allowed to have matches and thought this was not a very good gift for a little girl, but knew to say thank you anyway.

He placed the little “Red Head” match box in my hand and said, “Open it and see what is inside.” When I slid the little inner box out, there were a bunch of sort of purple beads. I looked at my Daddy, hoping he would tell me what this was and how grateful I was supposed to be for something like this.

My Daddy looked at the man and smiled. “Tell her what that is, my friend” he said.

“In this little match box are magical seeds. You remember the story of Jack in the Beanstalk, don’t you? Well these are also very special seeds that some (Native American) Indians gave to me. They will produce a crop of corn for popping. You do like pop corn don’t you?”

Well, of course I liked pop corn, especially in the big aluminium bowl that Mommy used to put it in and drizzle the butter and salt all over, then shake it up into the air to miss it well. But now I would have special pop corn that I grew myself.

The Precious Gift

I looked again at the seeds and closed the box carefully; hoping not to lose any and knowing Daddy would tell me how to plant them so they all grew into great bunches of popped corn.

The man left the car and closed the door and wandered away down a little lane way. My Daddy turned to me and asked me if I knew what that man was? And I said no, he was just a man.

He said, “That man is a hobo and he has no home and no family and no friends and no possessions but what he has on right now. So the gift of that popcorn is very precious indeed, because it represented all he has in the world.”

We planted those seeds in the spring. The popcorn from those seeds was the best tasting in the world. We harvested the seeds and replanted every year of my life while I was living at home.

The most important thing for me, however wasn’t how tasty the popcorn was. Instead, I thought of that man the rest of my life every time someone gave me a gift, thinking about the fact that it has nothing to do with the grandness of the gift itself, but the value of the heart of the giver. That Hobo had a most generous heart.

Best Wishes to You for 2009

The holidays have passed now and I can only hope you got something as valuable as magic popcorn to think about for this New Year.