Door to Door

Some shout-outs: Janice, a longtime employee of Regal Cinemas and her new coworker, Jeremiah; Tommy, one of our regular servers at Beauregard's; the server working for Teresa at Old Vienna Bakery whose baby girl is due in August; all the folks working in the New Hope Town Hall; the fellow fixing the downtown water fountain; the late-night inventory replenishers at Wal-Mart; the proud parents of a 20-month old boy; my new coworker who runs the municipal golf course; everyone who smiled and nodded at me yesterday for the sole reason of recognising each other as regular people.

I am humbled by our instant friendships.

I embrace our friendships just as much as I embrace the idea of the constant development of new technology, taking the time in my thoughts to contemplate the consequences.  So far, every person and technology I've met is neither purely evil nor purely good - in other words, real life.

Last night, while my wife and I watched "The Ghost Writer" with a few others, I thought about the events of this week in my life and in the lives of those I encountered as well as the lives of those whose living moments coincided with mine but not in physical sight of me.

Think about a movie you enjoyed that was based on a book you read.  In your thoughts you can see distinct differences between the two but you can find similarities.  You may, because you live in this society with the rest of us, have imagined living actors filling roles of the characters of the book as you read it before you even knew the book had been optioned for film rights.

How many of us see life that way?  Do we walk through our day looking at people around us and comparing them to actors, athletes, politicians or other "famous" people we know about through popular media?

When I was a kid, the public schools I attended conducted (some might say "concocted") fundraisers that required schoolchildren to carry an index card with a few sentences we were to read when our neighbours opened the door to our knocks.

We would then show an order form with photographs of inexpensive household items that we hoped our neighbours would be interested in buying - prayer candles, soap, flashlights, fruit (oranges, grapefruits, tangerines, tangelos) as well as raffle tickets - whatever the school administrators had negotiated with supply companies to sell in exchange for a school benefit (money, special events, or "points" toward specific rewards for the schoolchildren).

Other organisations associated with children - Scouting (both boys and girls), religious groups, community civic teams (most often sports-related), school yearbook staff - also encouraged kids to collect money from neighbours.

Some children would give their order forms to their parents and ask them to collect money from coworkers.

However we did it, we were to take back to school our minimally-required collection targets or face repercussions from teacher/peer pressure.

In every class or group, a few kids exceed their collection targets by a large margin and a few won't bother to sell anything.  Again, real life in action.

As an adult, I look back at these activities and see many reasons for pushing schoolchildren to walk from one neighbour's door to another:

• Build community awareness
• Overcome childhood shyness
• Exercise one's body
• Meet new people
• Identify and nurture those with natural/innate sales talent
• Give children with few moneymaking opportunities a chance to earn their own money, gifts or access to special events
• Teach kids about life in the real world outside the cocoon of cliques, classrooms and playgrounds

I've walked door-to-door for many reasons, including school/Scouts fundraisers, politic leaflet distribution for local politicians, telephone directory delivery, and student handbook (mini-encyclopedia) sales one summer in college.

In our civilisations, we all walk door-to-door, so to speak.  A door in a home or business is a place where we meet people.

When we meet, we communicate.  Body language, smells, and the surrounding environment establish first impressions and then we go from there to determine what our new friendships will do for us.  We may be selling something, buying something, wanting information, seeking advice or looking for simple companionship in the moment.

We may be volunteer soldiers from Tennessee standing on the walls of the Alamo looking into the face of sure defeat against a Mexican army.  We may be a humble chemist and his family selling "magic" soap.

We may be whomever we please.


Every moment is an opportunity for people on both sides of a door - closed or open, real or imagined.  How you see that opportunity is up to you.

Personally, I see a door as a moment to learn something positive about you because every one of us has lived a unique life worth talking about.  I've learned it selling fruit and I learned it giving out free telephone directories - I always look forward to the next opportunity to hear your story, whatever reason we meet in a doorway.