Dinner and a Show

After Mass, my mother and I usually go out to eat and for a while now, our restaurant of choice has been Friendly's.  While the once ubiquitous eatery has seen its fair share of ups and downs over the years, the location we like to visit has decent food and pretty good service.  The restaurant chain is popular with penny-pinching parents and their sometimes noisy children so it will never be mistaken for The Ritz.

On a recent visit, we were seated by the window and ordered our meals as usual.  Eventually, an overweight woman and a sloppily dressed couple with their toddler walked by and headed toward the front door.  The couple and toddler were seated a few tables down from us but the overweight woman was nowhere to be seen.  The guy plunked himself down in the booth so that he was lying entirely across it.  I got a bad vibe from him and he seemed very weaselly.  Within minutes, the two got into a disagreement so she picked up the toddler and headed for the door.  He yelled, “If you leave now, we're through!”  After stewing in the booth for a moment, he angrily headed outside after her.

From our window seat we could the couple arguing as she walked dangerously close to the edge of a busy highway just to get away from him.  At one point, I thought he was going to push her into traffic.  We altered our waitress and she said the police had already been called.  Within minutes, one cruiser after another arrived on the scene and the couple was escorted back to the restaurant's parking lot to talk it out.  I assumed they would be taken away so we could dine in peace once again.

The overweight woman who had accompanied the couple to Friendly's reappeared and sat at the table right across from us.  The mother entered the restaurant and put her toddler on a chair after the waitress's offer for a child seat was refused.  Within a few seconds, the little girl slid off the chair and landed on her bum.  She cried for a while as the mother tried to comfort her.  The waitress took it upon herself to bring over a child seat and the toddler was finally secured. 

The couple sat down at the table and got a talking to by one of the police officers.  They agreed to behave themselves and decided to stay.  Just our luck.  The disturbance had caused things to slow down in the kitchen and we waited a long time for our food.  Every now and then the couple appeared to quietly exchange insults.  The toddler kept throwing her straw on the floor so the mother would have to get up and retrieve it.  Was she being playful or was this a way for her to cope with the stress of having argumentative parents?

The group eventually got their food and started to eat.  The weaselly guy looked like a drug addict and at one point, he almost nodded off.  When a toddler from another table decided to walk around the restaurant with her dad, the girl in the high chair turned around and softly said, “Hi.”  Such a sweet moment of innocence made me wonder what kind of a life this kid would have growing up.  Would she be able to rise above such lousy circumstances or is she destined to follow in her parents footsteps?  I got angry and felt like telling this guy to man up for the sake of his daughter.  The economy was still booming and there were plenty of jobs out there for this guy to support his family.

As they finished eating, the staff started to pack up their leftovers.  Suddenly, the overweight woman demanded the meal be free since they had been put through such an ordeal with the police.  She also tried blaming the restaurant for the toddler falling on the floor even though she was the one who had refused the high chair in the first place.  The waitress stood her ground and said if they didn't pay what they owed, she would bring the police back.  After a bit of grumbling, they grudgingly paid the bill.  Before these people headed out the door, they accused the waitress and manager of swearing at them.  It never happened.

As the restaurant returned to normal, the whole incident left me feeling cold.  Jesus said to help the poor but it's clear some people don't want help.  Instead of working hard to better themselves, they try to scam the system.  How do we as Christians respond to that?  I certainly don't have the answer.

A Moment Of Carelessness

It doesn't happen often but sometimes a priest will give a sermon that's so memorable, it stays with you despite the passage of time. My last entry on this blog had me thinking about one in particular.

Every now and then, a visiting priest would say Mass at St. Mary Star of the Sea in Beverly.  This unfamiliar face might simply be helping our pastor out or he could be pitching a cause that the parishioners will be asked to support during the second collection. I can't remember why this particular priest was in our church nor do I remember much about him other than the fact he was old. While at the lectern, he talked about how we should always give our best effort in life no matter how small or insignificant the task at hand appeared to be. We were all connected to each other and our actions had the power to touch people's lives in ways that were not readily apparent. Whenever we were careless or lazy, it could have serious unforeseen consequences.

Then he told us the story of a teen-aged boy during the 1950s who was swimming with his friends at a local pond. Like many young people do, they decided to climb high rocks and dive into the water. When it was this boy's turn to jump, he disappeared beneath the water and never resurfaced. His worried friends contacted the authorities and they dredged the pond only to find his lifeless body. An autopsy revealed the boy had been impaled by a bayonet from the 1800s that was sticking straight up from the bottom of the pond. At one time, there had been a railroad bridge over this body of water and it was speculated that the bayonet may have come from a long-forgotten troop train. Did a careless soldier accidentally drop his bayonet into the pond or did he throw it away on purpose? The visiting priest then explained that we should always strive to do our best even in the smallest of tasks because it could affect someone's life in a very profound way.

Sometimes priests like to embellish the facts during their sermons and I haven't been able to determine if the story about this ill-fated boy is actually true or not. Over the years, I've heard least two different priests give the same inaccurate sermon on the construction of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. They said that after a few workers fell to their deaths, a large net was set up underneath the bridge to prevent any more fatalities. The priests went on to liken the net to our sense of faith which can “catch us” in our time of need. Well, the history lesson they gave isn't quite right. From the very beginning of the Golden Gate Bridge's construction, planners had set up nets to catch workers. While it saved many lives, it did not prevent the deaths of 10 men when the heavy platform they were on fell and broke through the net.

Even if our visiting priest's sermon wasn't completely accurate, it certainly did make an impression and I usually think of it when moments of carelessness pop up. A few years ago in Boston, a trolley operator thought nothing of texting someone on his phone until he crashed into another train and caused life-long injuries for some of his passengers. In Taiwan, a multistory building collapsed during an earthquake and it was later revealed the developer cut corners by placing empty paint cans into the concrete foundation which weakened the structure. Over 100 innocent people died for someone else's financial gain.

                                                                               Photo: BBC

Not every moment of carelessness will have such devastating consequences but that doesn't mean we are off the hook when it comes to doing the right thing. A joyful smile and a concerned ear to the random stranger (who might be having a bad day) could make a big difference in their lives. What impression would a scowl and a cold shoulder have instead? Throwing a small piece of trash on the ground might seem harmless enough but how many of us have lost precious time scraping gum from our shoes? Not doing a thorough job of cleaning our furnace certainly caused a fair share of headaches for my mother and me.

We are all God's creations and one thing I love about Christianity is that it reinforces the notion that our actions no matter how big or small touch other people's lives. What kind of impact do we want to make?

God's Perfect Timing

One autumn “tradition” in New England is having your house's furnace serviced before frigid temperatures set in.  My family has been using the same fuel oil company for about four generations now and our most recent appointment to have the furnace cleaned and inspected seemed as routine as all the others.  Unfortunately, it was anything but.  Two weeks after we turned the heat on, the furnace suddenly died around 8 o'clock at night.  The circuit breaker wasn't tripped so we placed a desperate call into our oil company.  They told us an emergency visit would be much more expensive than a service call during regular business hours so we opted to wait until the next day to have someone look at the furnace.  It was cold out but thankfully, it wasn't freezing.

When the repairman arrived, he took all of five minutes to find the cause of the problem.  The nozzle that sprays a fine mist of fuel oil to be ignited was clogged by sludge.  In our over 40 years in the house, we never encountered this problem before.  He also said the nozzle was bent so my mother and I wondered if the problem was somehow connected to the cleaning job that was done two weeks ago.

As we made plans to host my brother and his family for Thanksgiving dinner, the furnace was not too far from the back of my mind.  Then just two hours before company showed up, the heater died again.  This time, it was much colder outside so putting off a repair was out of the question.  The already expensive emergency service call would be even more so since it was a major holiday.  I was a little mad at God for His “perfect” timing.  When my brother and his family arrived, the house was cold and his children had to keep their jackets on.

The subcontracted repairman was busy with so many service calls, it took him quite a long time to get to us.  When he checked the furnace, the filters were clogged with sludge.  He also noticed the electrodes which sparked a fire had been worn down so I had them replaced too.  Heat was eventually restored and we could finally enjoy Thanksgiving dinner in a warm house.

My mother and I were not happy with our fuel oil provider so a few days later, we demanded the owner drop by the house to give us some answers if he wanted to keep us as customers.  When my mother questioned the owner about the quality of his company's cleaning job, he rolled his eyes.  I then asked why the burned out electrodes on the furnace were missed.  He apologized and offered to reimburse us.  There was never a good explanation why so much sludge had clogged our furnace's filters and when we wondered why the nozzle had been bent, the guy placed blame on his fellow employees saying how difficult it was to find good help these days.  We watched him test the fuel oil and there were no sediments this time around.  The owner was cocky and dressed like a slob.  It was a far cry from how things used to be.

For such a long time, this oil company was extremely professional.  It's employees were all part of the same family and everyone wore spiffy uniforms.  They worked hard to earn the trust and (dare I say) friendship of their customers by blending competence with friendliness.  Their invoices featured the logo of a girl peacefully sleeping in her bed with the slogan: Safe, Dependable Oil Heat.  When the previous owner's son took over, some of those little things that made this company a pleasure to deal with started to fall by the wayside.  Maybe the company's new logo should be a picture of my niece shivering with her winter jacket on.

Often when life throws us a curve ball, our knee-jerk reaction is to blame God.  I was guilty of that when our furnace stopped working on Thanksgiving.  What we should do is look to see if our difficulties were caused by someone failing to give it their all.  Cutting corners may bring a person an immediate short-term gain but it usually comes at the expense of someone else's long-term peace of mind.

Poverty Is Hazardous to Your Health

Hmmm.  How old are these tires?

This month, a good friend now living in Arizona returned to the area with his son for vacation.  He stayed over his dad's house and hoped to check out a few museums on Cape Cod during the week.  I was invited to tag along but the trip had me worried.  My friend's father struggled financially and I wondered if his car was being properly maintained.  No one else shared my concern and later that night, my mother told me to be positive.

Our long journey to "the Cape" started smoothly but as we passed through Boston, the car made a grinding noise.  I quickly realized it was a flat tire and told my friend to pull into the breakdown lane.  With no usable spare, we were stranded.  Luckily, a state trooper passed by and offered us assistance.  The car was eventually towed a repair shop near my friend's dad's house but since the driver only had room for one passenger, my friend's son, dad and I had to take the commuter rail back.  We missed catching the noon train by three minutes.  "Be positive," my mother said.  It seems odd to say the highlight of our trip to Cape Cod was not dying in an automobile accident.

The "scenic view" from our Cape Cod trip. 

The repair shop said all of the car's tires were way too old so my friend spent over 500 dollars to buy four new ones.  It turned out his dad was deferring maintenance on his automobile and the additional discovery of rusting tie rods meant a second attempt to Cape Cod was out of the question.  Throughout this whole ordeal, I thought about how dangerous poverty could be.  We've all seen junky old cars that are patched together but have we ever thought about the people who drive them?

My friend's dad had been a loyal employee of the Jordan Marsh department stores since 1969.  The company was bought by Macy's in 1996 and then ten years later, they merged with the Filene's department store chain.  Since Filene's employees were unionized and the Macy's employees were not, my friend's dad suddenly found himself out of a job.  To add insult to injury, he was only a few years away from retirement.

Poverty in the suburbs can be difficult to see but every now and then I would catch glimpses of his financial hardships.  In winter, he shut off the heat and wore extra layers of clothes.  On hot summer days, he wouldn't run the air conditioner.  At night, he used a flashlight to go from room to room instead of turning on the lights.  One year, he lost a shocking amount of weight because there was little money for groceries.

Recently, a local TV show examined the health risks associated with poverty by comparing two Boston neighborhoods that were only a few miles apart.  In the affluent Bay Back, the average life expectancy was 90 but in the much poorer Roxbury, the average life expectancy was 58.  Why the disparity?  Those interviewed cited a number of reasons including limited access to health care, food deserts, crime, stress and even depression.  When you're struggling to make ends meet, problems seem compounded. 

It's tempting for some Christians to say, "God helps those who help themselves" and "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" but those sayings aren't found anywhere in the Bible.  If you look at the story of the Good Samaritan, we are called to go that extra mile for those in need.  Nowhere does the Good Samaritan tell the man who was robbed and beaten, "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps."  There are times when people feel like the world has beaten them down and they need help to get back up again. 

When my friend's dad lost his job, it left him a broken man.  He had done everything right but still wound up on the losing side of capitalism.  It would have been great had he just brushed himself off and found another job to cover all of his expenses but for people who are poor in spirit, it doesn't always work that way.  Sometimes even when they know the proverbial runaway train is coming, they can't muster enough strength to get out of the way.

During the latest presidential election, there was plenty of rhetoric concerning jobs, downsizing, poverty, living wages and retirement.  Sometimes I think this country has too much of an "us versus them" mentality with the successful not fully understanding the hardships of their more unfortunate brothers and sisters in Christ.  I'm not talking about creating a welfare state or an entitlement mentality but seeing my friend's dad struggle with so many problems during his golden years makes me think we aren't doing enough to lend a helping hand to those who need it the most.