Someone has moved into the empty house next door.
Thing is, that house caught fire last summer. While it's structurally sound––a crew went in and cleaned it out––the house has no electricity, heating, or plumbing.
So, someone is living there, in extreme cold. They've been keeping out of sight, but tracks in the snow lead to the back porch, which faces my apartment across a small yard.
Last night the sound of my neighbor hammering something in the yard woke me up. I got up and checked the time and temp:
3 a.m.
-1ºF / -18 C.
I went back to bed.
This person quite likely has mental problems, I thought. They could be dangerous or, at any rate, desperately needy.
They also could freeze to death.
I got back up, put on clothes, and went down my back steps.
I called across the fence,
"Hello, over there! Do you want to come sleep inside?"
A cheery male voice answered me, "Thanks, we're OK! But... do you have any water to drink?"
I went back upstairs and filled two Mason jars with tepid water, wrapped them in towels, and put them in a cloth bag.
"Are you sure you're OK?" I said as I handed them over.
The young man I saw was dressed for winter camping--a fur trimmed parka, good boots.
"Yeah, we've got heating. We're burning those little cans you use to keep food warm. But thanks for your offer!"
Sterno. God help us.
You know how I felt?
Honestly, I felt relief that he didn't take me up on my offer. And I felt good––morally off the hook, for having offered.
Ha.
I'm not proud of that, but I think it's OK, and I wanted to say it because I rarely hear it said.
More often I hear, "Why Didn't They Help [fill in the blank innocent victims of history]?" as if helping strangers is an obvious thing to do.
But it's not.
Helping friends and family may be hard, but helping strangers, up close and personal, is a different thing--almost ... mmm, unnatural? I mean, sort of beyond our social evolution?
Possibly I missed it, but I don't know of much written about that.
I never saw Schindler's List because I hate Stephen Spielberg's sentimentality. I watched a couple minutes when it was on TV a while ago, and it looked like his usual romanticized version of history. The good guys literally glow. Their suffering (the good guys') is noble.
You watch it, and you feel like you're noble.
Blah, blah, blah.
[Ditto To Kill a Mockingbird.]
I suppose it's good such movies exist, to encourage us to try to help the stranger, but they're hardly realistic.
Helping people you don't know is annoying, and helpers are often annoyed. (I work with some of them.)
I've written before, in contrast, about the wonderful little slip of a novel, Comedy in a Minor Key, by Hans Keilson, who had been a member of the Dutch resistance in WWII.
It's about a nice Christian couple who hide a nice Jewish man in WWII Holland. They all tiptoe around being uncomfortably polite in tight quarters for a couple years.
Nobody glows.
Then the man dies of pneumonia and the couple enters a sort of slapstick comedy:
What to do with the body?
Put it in a closet?
Oh! Googling Comedy, I see there's a 9 minute film out this year. Wow, I should try to watch it. It's being developed into a full-length film, I read.
I went on a date once with a handsome guy who told me over dinner he didn't like Mother Teresa.
Why not, I asked him.
"She's not likable, she's a crank," he said.
I gather that was true.
"You try picking up dying people covered in lice," I said, "and see how likable you are."
So, there was just the one date then?
There was just the one date.
Thing is, that house caught fire last summer. While it's structurally sound––a crew went in and cleaned it out––the house has no electricity, heating, or plumbing.
So, someone is living there, in extreme cold. They've been keeping out of sight, but tracks in the snow lead to the back porch, which faces my apartment across a small yard.
Last night the sound of my neighbor hammering something in the yard woke me up. I got up and checked the time and temp:
3 a.m.
-1ºF / -18 C.
I went back to bed.
This person quite likely has mental problems, I thought. They could be dangerous or, at any rate, desperately needy.
They also could freeze to death.
I got back up, put on clothes, and went down my back steps.
I called across the fence,
"Hello, over there! Do you want to come sleep inside?"
A cheery male voice answered me, "Thanks, we're OK! But... do you have any water to drink?"
I went back upstairs and filled two Mason jars with tepid water, wrapped them in towels, and put them in a cloth bag.
"Are you sure you're OK?" I said as I handed them over.
The young man I saw was dressed for winter camping--a fur trimmed parka, good boots.
"Yeah, we've got heating. We're burning those little cans you use to keep food warm. But thanks for your offer!"
Sterno. God help us.
You know how I felt?
Honestly, I felt relief that he didn't take me up on my offer. And I felt good––morally off the hook, for having offered.
Ha.
I'm not proud of that, but I think it's OK, and I wanted to say it because I rarely hear it said.
More often I hear, "Why Didn't They Help [fill in the blank innocent victims of history]?" as if helping strangers is an obvious thing to do.
But it's not.
Helping friends and family may be hard, but helping strangers, up close and personal, is a different thing--almost ... mmm, unnatural? I mean, sort of beyond our social evolution?
Possibly I missed it, but I don't know of much written about that.
I never saw Schindler's List because I hate Stephen Spielberg's sentimentality. I watched a couple minutes when it was on TV a while ago, and it looked like his usual romanticized version of history. The good guys literally glow. Their suffering (the good guys') is noble.
You watch it, and you feel like you're noble.
Blah, blah, blah.
[Ditto To Kill a Mockingbird.]
I suppose it's good such movies exist, to encourage us to try to help the stranger, but they're hardly realistic.
Helping people you don't know is annoying, and helpers are often annoyed. (I work with some of them.)
I've written before, in contrast, about the wonderful little slip of a novel, Comedy in a Minor Key, by Hans Keilson, who had been a member of the Dutch resistance in WWII.
It's about a nice Christian couple who hide a nice Jewish man in WWII Holland. They all tiptoe around being uncomfortably polite in tight quarters for a couple years.
Nobody glows.
Then the man dies of pneumonia and the couple enters a sort of slapstick comedy:
What to do with the body?
Put it in a closet?
Oh! Googling Comedy, I see there's a 9 minute film out this year. Wow, I should try to watch it. It's being developed into a full-length film, I read.
I went on a date once with a handsome guy who told me over dinner he didn't like Mother Teresa.
Why not, I asked him.
"She's not likable, she's a crank," he said.
I gather that was true.
"You try picking up dying people covered in lice," I said, "and see how likable you are."
So, there was just the one date then?
There was just the one date.
