WAS HE BEING HONEST?
I wonder why in so many matters we feel that we have to have all questions answered and if not, we do not become involved? My wife and I were driving home from Gonzales, Louisiana. We had been there for a week-end to an old car and rock- n- roll show. Then spent three days in New Orleans. By the way, if you want to have some fun spend a week end with seven thousand Cajun folks. Oh my, I love those folks.
Around noon we stopped at a fast food place in Meridian, Mississippi to grab a bite to eat and then be back on our way home. We had received our order and before eating, I went to the rest room. In doing so I walked by this man whose eyes told his story. I had seen that look before on occasion. He was sitting alone, and you can put your own by-lines to the story. I had taken about two bites into my sandwich when I looked over at his table and noticed the only thing he had in front of him was a glass of water. I got up and walked over to his table. His head was bent down, and as I spoke to him slowly he began to bring his eyes up. “Are you hungry,” I asked him. “Uh, yes sir, I am.” I then told him to come and get in line with me and order whatever he wanted. I told him my name was Larry and I asked him his. He told me his name was Kenneth and from there we began our conversation.
Was he really Kenneth? Was he telling me the truth when he said that his unemployment check had not come in today as it normally did? Had he really moved there from Los Angles? Was he telling me a story when he said he had once attended Tennessee State in Nashville? There was much more conversation but was he “just telling me a story?”
Some might ask “Was he lying to you?” Was Kenneth being truthful with me or was he just feeding me a line? Who knows how much honesty was in our conversation; but I will tell you something I’d bet my life on. He was drop dead, Abraham Lincoln honest with me about one thing... he was hungry. You know when you think about it, wasn’t that the question I had first asked him? “Are you hungry?” He answered my question very truthfully. No doubt about it, he was hungry and he was honest with me about that. Enough said.
“Snap judgments would be all right if they didn’t come unsnapped so often.”
July 20, 2011
Keep on,
Larry Adamson