Most mornings, about this time, three bald-headed men sit around a small table down at the coffeeshop and talk trash to each other and whomever stops by for their morning fix. The mostly retired physician will read your horoscope from the newspaper, my father-in-law will offer to charge double for your latte (which would bring it right about to what Starbucks charges), and the fellow who runs one of our local banks will smile and nod and say things faintly enough that only those at his table can hear. Chuckling.
This is one of the pleasures of living in a small town.
We on the progressive left have a difficult relationship with the business community. Some of us are entrepreneurs, but in general (if my sense of the kos community is anywhere near accurate) our entrepreneurship is largely focused on finding non-traditional ways to make a living, and not on becoming titans of industry. On several occasions this last season there has been much shouting here about the inherent evil of Republicans.
And so, if you'll follow along at home (or at work, and congratulations for having work), a tale from the coffeeshop by way of contradiction.
Our banker friend runs one of the main street banks. It's part of a state-wide chain, and I don't know what his title is, save that he has the corner office. He plays golf (about which Twain was surely right), shares my enthusiasm for college basketball (this is Kentucky, after all), and is adept enough a conversationalist never to let slip any offense which might deter a potential customer of any political affiliation from darkening his door.
He has also been a force for good as our downtown has sought to stay somehow viable, despite the presence of a Super WalMart out by the freeway, a presence orchestrated by one of our former mayors who also owns many of the crumbling downtown buildings left partially vacant by his more recent triumphs. (The downtown buildings pay their way through the rental of upstairs apartments to college students, though one is reliably informed they are not terribly safe structures, nor well-tended.)
Each year about this time our banker friend comes into the shop and asks that we prepare gift packages for his best customers. This is a nice little bonus to our bottom line, and it's something we take pride in doing well because his best customers are also, we presume, some of our best customers. And it's good advertising for us. All those things.
Yesterday we were talking at lunch, he and I, mostly about the stock market and the auto bail-out. And while I presume from various things he's said that he's probably a Republican, my sense is also that he is at least a liberal Republican in many things. Or at least he reacts with a very natural smile when we talk, and I am happily fooled.
Regardless.
We were talking about the stock market and the auto bail-out, and the jobs picture, and he mentioned quite off-hand that he had decided not to give out gift packages to his major clients this year. He'd been down to the local food bank, and they were (as many are, I suspect) filled with clients, and less filled with foods to give them. One of his clients had suggested that the best Christmas gift his bank could give would be a donation to the food bank. And so that's what he's doing this year.
It took half a day to realize that this conversation was his gentle way of telling us he wouldn't be spending that money in our shop this year. It's not something he'll publicize, not a gift he'll draw attention to in the local newspaper. It's just the right thing to do.
Which I share here not because it has any lasting impact beyond our small town, but because I grow weary of hearing that those who oppose our policies are inherently evil, that the business community is inherently our foe. No. We are all people, doing the best we can. Clearly, on the national stage, we see a number of people in power -- on both sides of the aisle -- who are not doing the best they can for all of us. Clearly, some number of businesses have been allowed to become too large, too enmeshed with our economy, else we could let them fail. Else we'd not be in this mess.
But we are not enemies, those with whom we disagree. We are participants in the democratic process. And we are members of our greater and lesser communities.
Which I share here also as a reminder made in several places already, but never too often: Please shop locally, for it makes a difference. And please give to your local charities, for they need your support (as Nixon once sloganned) now more than ever and your neighbors need it, too.
That's all. But I figured we could do with a bit of good news this morning.