North Carolina has swung into spring in as near full bloom as non full bloom as you can be. I sit outside, upon the back porch and I let the wind play carelessly with my hair. I need a haircut, but most of you wouldn't know it. I'm in a familiar neighborhood, but for a somewhat unfamiliar reason. It's the first time I've seen some of the neighbor folk who live here nowadays. Change: it's not permanent. But change is.
Walking out of the Super Target earlier, after getting some new skivvy's and I noticed what we all to often don't: my surroundings. I took a step back from being in the center of the universe and looked at the planets, the satellites of people who surrounded not my immediate, or even intermediate life, but my passing one. I don't feel the effect of the economy, don't see the effect in Fayetteville, but Durham; Durham I see the change see the difference, see the way American life shouldn't be.
It was the age of the cashier, the age of the cart jockey in the parking lot, the lady discarding what she had picked out but yet couldn't afford. I expect the parking lot cart jockey to be in high school, or at least fresh out of. The 40 year old man, he could've been a lawyer, a doctor, certainly a business man. But he wasn't, he was in his red top and black pants, pushing a line of carts. The cashier, she could've been my grandmother, should've been retired.
After Target, the New Balance store. Herb, who helped me pick out a good set of trail shoes, he was middle aged. Vermont, New Hampshire, he tells me of these places. Places he lived with his wife and kids. Laid off from his job in marketing to fall into the embraces of management in Harris Teeter, and now using a shoe horn and tying my shoe. It's time for a change. This weather, it's the sign, the change, the hope for Herb, the hope for cart guy. It's the hope for us. We must believe, we must work hard, and if we can simply do that; then we'll pull through. Keep your head up and your hearts open.
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