For Wilshire Baptist Church
I made an assumption, and I was wrong. That’s never happened before, right?
We have neighbors a couple of doors down and across the street who have a business hauling stuff in a large trailer. Occasionally there’ll be some noise as they come and go – and there’ll be an extra vehicle or two on the street – but it’s “over there” and so it’s not such a bother.
Until recently, when there was a major escalation of noise that lasted all day, and many more vehicles including in front of our house. Because of our trees and the extra vehicles scattered around, I couldn’t see what was going on, but I figured they were dismantling something to prepare for hauling and apparently it required a big crew. I was ready to make a call to code enforcement or whoever when I looked out the window and saw something new: a man walking from the side of the house wearing white coveralls caked with brown mud. I stepped outside to get a better look from our porch and it all became clear: A crew at the house was digging deep holes and trenches around the perimeter of the foundation to level the house.
They weren’t driving trucks with business names or logos or anything that said “foundation repair,” so it was an easy mistake to make. Still, I found myself sniping with comments like, “I hope they know what they’re doing.” I had foundation work at my previous house with a well-known contractor, and I know from watching them it requires some engineering expertise and not just the well intentions of friends to do it right.
But who and how the work was being done is really beside the point. The men who were there were getting down in the mud and rocks and making improvements. What’s more, they were giving an old house built in the 1950s more years as a home where a family will be safe, warm and dry. In other neighborhoods around town, the house might have been bulldozed years ago and replaced with who knows what.
Thankfully, I didn’t act on my initial assumptions of what was happening across the street, and it’s reminded me how easy it is to misread something; to jump to conclusions, take things out of context or create a context that doesn’t even exist.
Some of my greatest hits:
-The homeless man walking through the rain with a backpack who actually was a commuter walking from his home to the train.
-The pick-up truck slow-rolling around our corner when we were building our house and obviously looking for something to steal. Turned out he was a neighbor who had been watching me walking around in the dark and suspected I was the one up to no good.
-The stranger nosing around the hallways and cubicles at the office who, when cornered by two of us, flashed his undercover police credentials and revealed he was investigating the rash of thefts in the building by people off the street.
-The woman rushing to clean tables at the restaurant and not doing such a good job, who later took my ticket and credit card at the front because she owned the joint.
-The business executive who offered me the weakest handshake ever, and who I joked about until I learned he was missing a thumb.
-The time I was ready to jump to the aid of a woman being denied a seat on a plane because of the way she was dressed, only to find out she worked for the airline and her attire didn’t meet their standards for non-revenue passengers.
The list goes on and on, and I add to it all the time. But slowly, I’m learning to stand down and not tell a story that isn’t there until I know more. I’m learning that noise down the street just might be the sound of someone working hard to make things better.