The incredulous look on our hosts’ faces could not have revealed more disbelief had I requested an enclosure for my herd of elephants. “A car? You mean you intend to bring a car? Nobody in New York has a car. Why, you would have to park it miles away, and even that would cost hundreds of dollars a month. Here there are the subway, trains, buses, and taxies. Why would you need a car? In an emergency you could rent one.”
I hadn’t thought about that conversation until something recently took place in our retirement community. A new couple had just moved here having previously lived in an apartment in the heart of Manhattan where, of course, they had no car. As they were leaving their old neighborhood a friend asked them if they were worried about having no way to get around in this part of California. Since neither of them had a driver’s license, it had not occurred to them that Los Angeles was the heart of the automobile empire. Everybody has a car! But in New York they had never needed a car, and were quite certain that they would not need one here. So they moved in wheel-less!
The office where they both would be working was almost a mile from their house, and being resourceful they did purchase a couple of the adult style tricycles common among seniors in the community. So they would peddle from home to their office and back. That solved their transportation problem, and in addition the bikes provided much needed exercise.
So, all was well, UNTIL one of them came down with a complicated medical problem that required daily travel to a hospital in a community almost an hour away. So it was an hour there, an hour for the treatment and an hour back every day, for weeks! Now what? Had they still been in Manhattan, cab fare would have run a hundred dollars a day, which on top of the medical expenses would have been almost impossible. What were they to do?
It has taken me over 400 words to get around to what this column is really about—so reader, please be patient, and keep the foregoing in the corner of your mind while I get to the heart of what I want to say.
Given the nature of these columns, I most often find myself dealing with the nastiness engulfing the nation—centered on the king of nastiness who happens to be President. But just about the time I’m ready to give up on our society I am hit between the eyes with unexplainable goodness, and I am forced back from the rim of despair where I have been tottering!
Now let’s go back to the car-less matter faced by these recent transplants from New York. Somehow the word got out that they were stymied on how to get X to these daily out-of-town hospital visits. It took just a few hours without fanfare for the car-owners in this “intentional community” to solve the problem. Before the sun set all of these daily trips were taken care of, and even a collection of substitutes had signed up in case they were needed. People saw a need and quickly responded.
I mentioned living in an intentional community, and one of our intentions is to take care of one another. No fuss. No complicated structure, just a sense that in this terribly complex and often heartless society, good people find ways to share the journeys each of us must make over the rocky roads of daily life. Readers, I invite you to imagine how it might have gone in the neighborhood where you live if somebody on your block were confronted with such a problem. Perhaps part of the secret of living in an often selfish and heartless society is the generation of intentional communities of mutual concern. At least that is how we here have found ways to deal with these issues without pomp, complex legal structures or State regulations. Once again I was reminded of the innate goodness of people.
My guess is we don’t need more individuality or rules, just more community!
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