The beauty of Balltown

Rod, that truly is a beautiful story.

One thing: not that you haven't already thought of it, but you could also promote that as a basic description of true community. It doesn't take anything complicated, just a sincere consideration for our neighbors and sharing the burdens of calamity. We all know how to share the good times. It's how we deal with each other during adversity that defines community.

Maybe I'm just saturated with cynicism, or jaded, or something, but I don't find it to be surprising at all. Rare, too rare, vanishingly rare, but not surprising. People sometimes forget just how good we are at the core, and that we shouldn't have to have calamity to remember it.

Made my morning.

Love thy neighbor as thyself.

This sort of thing happens more often than you might expect. But in our noisy world, we rarely hear of it. And the kind of folks who do such things, rarely say anything about it. But we all know of such small deeds, great and small, in our communities. I'm always amazed at the kindnesses that appear at the most unexpected times. And often from people that you would never expect to see such kindness from.

I grew in a house my father and his neighbors built in the Hill Country of Texas, and when I faced a financial castastrophe 50 years later, some businessmen in slick suits and fancy cars in Marina del Rey saved my....solvency when they absolutely had nothing to gain from doing it. So kindness shows up in all kinds of places. Thanks, Crunchy Con, for reminding us of it.

This just goes to prove, once again, the wisdom of Marge Simpson: "Ooh, the Amish are so industrious, not like those shiftless Mennonites…"