~a column by Colleen O’Brien
In March of 1986, I wrote a column about friends and strangers helping one another after two weeks of monster snowfall – more than 17 feet fell at Lake Tahoe in Nevada, where we lived.
According to newspapers, “Several families were evacuated in front of an advancing onslaught of high winds, heavy snow and driving rain that caused avalanches, flooding, downed trees, ruptured gas mains and broken power lines.” Four decades later I lived in the path of a Florida hurricane, a fury that took out houses, trees and power as it surged Gulf water to 17 feet.
The only big differences in these two storms that I survived were the temperatures and the damage: Tahoe was freezing, and the snowstorm lasted two weeks. Florida was low 70s, and the storm lasted two days.
The big similarity was how neighbors and strangers came to one another’s aid as soon as they could and helped for days and weeks to clean up the mess.
Natural disasters are a phenomenon many of us have survived, and if lucky enough not to have been caught in either of these outbursts from Mother Nature, you’ve watched it on TV – people helping others, often before attending to their own troubles.
The Good Samaritan leaps out of us humans so readily when something bigger than life overwhelms us. Forty years ago, I saw people stop and help strangers out of snowbanks. Neighbors gave away firewood to casual acquaintances next door, and half the town took care of empty houses on their blocks, turning water faucets on to drip, and clearing paths for repairmen from the gas company.
In Florida, for weeks after Hurricane Ian, retired men and women dragged roofing, siding, endless branches and downed trees to huge piles to be hauled away later. Women cleaned out dead refrigerators of absentee owners and put together breakfast and lunch for entire neighborhoods without power. One island of wifi helped hundreds stay in touch with families in the north.
That it takes the threat of dying – in too many cases, death itself – and the chaos of devastating damage to bring out the best in the beasts we so often are. What a mix-up.
The patheticness is that we could be sympathetic all the time; we could be full of compassion and helpfulness and kindness and goodwill from getting up to going to bed. Why aren’t we? People aren’t grouchy when they’re helping others; we’re downright eager to help, full of camaraderie and relentless drive.
If we can do this for brief periods, what’s keeping us from doing it all the time? We quickly revert to hopelessness at the resurgence of the outright meanness of drivers, politicians, corporate heads, heads of state, moms and pops, cops, teachers, food checkers, nurses and doctors, patients, kids of all ages; we see it in the newspapers, on TV and all social media, we see it in person.
The lack of respect and the-hair-trigger temper, the disregard for other humans – it is seeing the goodness in humankind followed by our sudden return to complete disregard that is getting me down. I watch as I suddenly have no faith in others, or in words. What is truth?
It’s a strange time to be living, these early days of the 21st century. We can rail at nature for turning on itself; but it is the knowing that it’s turning on us that makes us ashamed for what we have done as we reap the increasing fright at the consequences. It all seems suddenly too much, turning us crazy. Acting like angry birds is hardly the answer when we know we can behave like angels.
I am waking up having dreamt of turning it around. Goodwill and loving compassion winning over selfishness, everyone calming down. I stand at a podium telling tired folks leaning on their rakes that the last of the smashed houses and dead trees have been removed. Everybody on the planet has problems, I say, but this one is at least over the worst part.
Somebody said the whole world would be okay if we were loving to our babies all the time – no impatience, no spanking, no mean words. Can we adults listen to one another and play with our kids? Can we realize that buybuybuy is a dead-end? Can we use humor instead of woe is me?
I read in the news about one neighbor bugging the city every morning to pick up his debris. The next guy is decorating his curbside mini mountain with Christmas lights. I want to live next to him.
