Community Character
By Albert B. Kelly
Aside from some highly
visible events, there are very few direct ways that a community can show its
character. By character, I mean the quality of its citizens; the nature of the
people who live and work and play in the community. It goes way beyond
statistics like median household income or the crime rate and even goes beyond
the ebbs and flows of the local economy. Statistics can be misleading because a
small band of knuckleheads and ne’er-do-wells can skew the numbers and cast a
long shadow on everyone else.
One way a community shows
its character is how it treats its elderly. There was a time once, when the
elderly were treated with respect even as they were held as the source of
community wisdom and experience. In certain Asian cultures, the aged were
revered as the link to many generations past and they were highly esteemed in
society’s pecking order. While certain cultures still hold a certain reverence
for the elderly, much has changed over the past several decades.
Perhaps it was the baby
boom generation or the cultural shift toward youth in the 1960’s. Whatever the
reason, the Pepsi generation gave way to a mindset that has little time,
patience or tolerance for the elderly; seeing them more as a hindrance, an
expense, or simply a group to be ignored. If this is the prevailing mindset
today, I think we accept it at our own peril.
In terms of community and
character, I think a good place to start is with how we care for our senior
citizens. Thinking about the past winter season and the amount of snow we’ve
had, I’ve worried about our seniors; everything from shoveling snow to keeping
warm and getting out to the store for food, medicine and other basic necessities.
It’s easy to take the
whole thing for granted because unless you’re a senior citizen, you probably
deal with the snow and the cold without much thought. Being younger and
stronger, it is easy for us to travel to the store and get groceries, pick up
medications, and run all the other errands that are part and parcel of doing
our daily and weekly business.
With that in mind, I would
like to thank those citizens who make it a point to check in on their elderly
neighbors; shoveling walkways, clearing sidewalks, going to the store on
errands, and doing one of a thousand little things to make sure that our
seniors are doing alright in what has been a rough winter season.
I would also like to
encourage others, who may not have given the matter any thought, to consider
taking a little extra time to check on any seniors living in their
neighborhoods; perhaps shoveling a walkway from the front door or clearing a
sidewalk. It may be a small thing for you, but if you are healthy enough and
strong enough, it means a lot to do an act of kindness such as this.
Perhaps you’re not able to
shovel snow; if that’s the case then maybe it’s within your power to cook a hot
meal for a senior citizen in your neighborhood. You might be surprised to know
how many seniors depend on “Meals on Wheels” just to get basic nutrition. For
many seniors, there are fears and concerns that the young never think about; everything
from slipping and falling on a sidewalk to getting mugged or stranded. That’s
why they stay close to home if they go out at all-so let’s help ease their
burden.
We have a few short weeks
left in winter and then we’ll be headed toward summer. In the heat, which I’m
sure we’ll have in abundance, checking on the elderly is just as important as
shoveling a walkway. It could be mowing a lawn or moving the garbage can out to
the curb or bringing it back; it’s the small things that make us special and we
can do these things throughout the year.
In some ways, I think this
is really how a community shows its character. This aspect of “community” is
not tied to the economy or the advertising or any one of a dozen such variables;
but it gets to the nature of the people we have and the people we are. It is
the X-factor in defining community. Kindness such this, is not the property of
a few and it’s not tied to statistics or demographics, but it’s who we are as a
community and what we hope our children and grandchildren will strive to
be…compassionate.
I’d like to think that
when I’m no longer able to do these tasks for myself; some young and strong and
willing person might come along and help me. At least that’s my hope and I
believe in paying it forward. This is something you can do as a family; parents
working with their children to help out an elderly or disabled neighbor; “modeling”
community, I’m not sure it gets any better than that.