Small talk not really small
Contributing writer
My six weeks on the Emporia State campus with all of their lessons have come to an end. Some lessons were learned in the classroom; some were learned out of the classroom; some I never quite mastered at all. Chief among the last was the fact that whenever the elevator stops, that does not necessarily mean that it is on my floor.
On the whole, classroom experiences were good for my morale. Although I do not have all my final grades at this writing, I think I made an A in everything. If I can compete with students who are in many cases young enough to be my grandchildren and get A's, there must be life in the old brain yet — even if I don't know when to get off the elevator.
Even though one lesson was not exactly new to me, I certainly had an opinion reinforced by my geography class. Studying other parts of the world made me more and more glad I live in the United States. In many parts of the world sufficient food and adequate shelter, sanitation and health care are luxuries most people cannot afford. I may not be able to afford some of them either, but I, like most Americans, manage to get the basics. Worse still is the callous disregard women suffer in many places; they are completely at the mercy of men who believe women have no value.
What I want most to talk about is a lesson learned outside the classroom. If you live on campus, you have very brief contacts with dozens of people every day. With a few you reach the point of exchanging names, and with a very few you become friends. However, most of the people who cross your path in the library, in the elevators, or on the way to class are not someone you really get acquainted with or ever expect to see again. You might exchange a greeting, but that is all. You might think this kind of meeting would have no impact on those who meet, but I discovered that is not true. Each such person had an effect, positive or negative, on my life — or at least on my mood for the day.
I first started pondering this when I got on the elevator one morning, and a man smiled and said, "That is a really good color on you." It is amazing what that simple sentence did for my self-esteem. The day was suddenly brighter, because a stranger made the effort to see me as another human being and validate me. The comment surprised me, because I have known few, if any, people who would have paid such a compliment to a total stranger, especially one of the opposite genders. After that I ran into this little man often, and he always had a smile and a friendly word, which brightened my day. I finally became brave enough to exchange names with him; he was Dr. Kelly from the social science department.
Two other men showed me the positive and negative sides of this coin. As I walked home from the grocery store one evening, a man who lived in an apartment complex near the campus was sitting on his back steps. "Lovely evening, isn't it?" I said. With enthusiasm he replied, "Yes, the Lord has given us a beautiful day. Isn't God good?" A few days later I was walking up to the parking lot where my car was parked to start home for the weekend. It was an absolutely perfect morning; pleasantly cool with a clear blue sky and no wind. Meeting a young man, I remarked, "Isn't this a beautiful morning?" Grudgingly he answered, "Ain't bad." I wanted to say, "If this morning is only 'not bad,' what would you recognize as an over-the-top gorgeous day?" One of these men boosted my spirits (and probably those of everyone he met, while the other (no doubt without realizing it) was doing his best to shoot me down.
There were a couple of women in the dorm who seemed both busy and reticent. I never felt encouraged to strike up a conversation or introduce myself. However, they never passed without a shy smile and a soft hello. They too made me feel good.
All these experiences set me to thinking. When I pass somebody like two ships in the night, so to speak, do I affect him or her positively or negatively? I began to try to find something positive to say, however brief it might be. I told a young black man I liked his shirt. I thanked some of the maintenance people for keeping the campus so beautiful. Sometimes I only smiled and said hello, but I noticed that often people responded as if I had given them a present.
As for me, I didn't run into Dr. Kelly the last couple weeks and thought perhaps he had finished whatever class he was teaching and left. As I left Plumb Hall after taking my last final exam, he got on the elevator as I got off. He asked me how I had done on my final, and we exchanged best wishes for the rest of the summer. It was a perfect ending to my summer school experience.
We all live in this world together. In small towns we often live with people we know well, who almost become family. In other circumstances we meet people who can become a faceless mass of semi-humanity. It is easy in those situations to treat each other as non-persons, but this may be when we most need to be recognized as fully human and treated as someone of worth. Next time you meet another person, however briefly and casually, see if an encouraging greeting will receive an equally encouraging response.
