Is Anyone Listening?

2/24/2016

The Lay of the Land

By Lyn Messersmith

Is Anyone Listening?

“We always talk across the fence, but neither of us has any interest in being on the same side of it.”      Anonymous

            If we’re really listening, we’ll often hear something profound from unexpected sources. I keep those gems in a notebook, along with the names of people who offered the notion. The speaker’s name doesn’t matter, in this case, although it’s unlikely that any readers know him. Let’s just call him Jake.

            Jake wasn’t the sort one pictures as possessing pearls of wisdom, but upon meeting him I learned two things; not to judge books by the cover, and to keep an ear open when he opened his mouth.  His hair was long and uncombed, usually sticking out from under a stocking cap or other headgear. A halfway beard, not the kind cultivated these days as looking cool, and his clothing looked like he’d just crawled out from under some sort of machine he’d been repairing, which was sometimes the case. He drove an old beater that would have fit well in a demo derby lineup, but was handy with mechanical things and a hard worker at whatever job was offered.  Jake is an accomplished musician, and it wasn’t unusual to find him entertaining in a local joint on a weekend.

            Those talents weren’t hard to fit with his persona, but it was when he spoke that you really paid attention. For one thing, his vocabulary was way beyond average and he was likely to use words that wanted pondering. He would tell you he didn’t know much about such and so, if he didn’t, but also let it be known he was searching to learn, and sometimes proposed a theory that made so much sense the listener wondered why they hadn’t thought of it themselves. Most of all, Jake had a way of cutting to the chase in a simple phrase like the one above, and people tended to relate his comments to their own problems or circumstances. He moved far away last year. I told him I was going to miss him, and I do.

            I’ve been reading through the notebook of wisdom lately and when I happened on this quote, one of many from Jake, my mind went straight to the political debates. Rarely is any candidate interested in crossing to the other side of the fence, or even in climbing up to sit on the top rail, listen, and discuss solutions. Have you heard any of them say they didn’t know, when answering a question? Has anyone confessed they needed to research the issue more in order to form an intelligent opinion? Who has admitted having learned from a mistake, or even making one? Apparently, they all are trying to hide the fact that they are human.

            See the thing about Jake was he never bragged, or cast blame. I haven’t been able to settle on a candidate to support for President, and I just realized why. I’m looking for someone like Jake, and he’s one of a kind.

           

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