Thanksgiving musings Part 2
Community Thanksgiving dinner. (Wife and kids are out of town, so I hit the local multi-association dinner for my tucker, while on duty in town.)
A well-known member of the community mans a giant smoker full of birds that look more beautiful in death than in life.
Teenagers from three church youth groups load up trays and then serve smoked turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed 'taters, green beans, corn, rolls and cranberry relish onto generous plates. Other lay out an array of pies and strong iced tea (sweet or unsweet).
I shake hands around the room, and load up a plate. I choose the best-looking slice of pumpkin pie and some good bitter tea. Looking around, it looks like families, and pairs of old people. I look around and see a small group of teenagers. Ah.
When in doubt, seek out young people.
We introduce ourselves, and chat around the table, cutting up and generally enjoying ourselves. These are not the shock-them-at-any-price, unwashed, unmannered, foul-mouthed kids that many assume all young people to be, these days. These are the pretty good kids that somebody cared enough about to compel to help serve a community Thanksgiving dinner. I got up and shook a couple of hands, thanked some servers for what was truly a very, very good meal, and headed back out on patrol.
Seriously-- one could do a lot worse.
posted by Matt G @ 1:03 PM
2 Comments:
I just spent four days in Amarillo evaluating a job opportunity. One of the criteria I use to evaluate a city is the quality of its teenagers.
I was impressed with what I saw. The kids seemed friendly and well-adjusted, not at all what one finds in south Florida.
I grew up in small North Texas town and we lived several miles out, just over the county line. When I was a teen, the police chief gave me a ride home one day as a favor to my dad, who was a friend and local business owner. I have no idea why I got this ride but I was then, and still am somewhat, easily intimidated by men so I don't think I said more than 2 words, except thank you, in the 15 minutes I was in his patrol car but I remember the impression it made on me well. I'd always looked at police as this high and lofty, intimidating authority figure that was always serious and looking for my mistakes. He was nice, he was kind and thoughtful to help out his friend, he was just a man who happened to carry a gun and have a very, very responsible and often dangerous job but still, a nice man. I suspect that you did more than just get a great dinner and good conversation today. I also suspect that you already knew that.
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