Dead Man's Honda

Last night I sat in my elderly bi-monthly Bible study. As I’ve said before, Lindsey and I are in our twenties, the next “young” individual is in their 60’s, followed by a group of 80 year-olds.

These nights are special because of the lady who can’t seem to clear her throat of the spit that sticks to the back of it--making her reading sound as though it’s being done from underwater. It’s special because of Anna snapping at her husband, Jack, who likes to just recite random scriptures from memory rather than read along with the designated passage. It’s special because of Callie.

Callie is in her eighties and looks just like what you would imagine (had the movies not already portrayed the image for you) a Hobbit might look like. With a distended belly, eyes that thrust out like a google goldfish, hair that looks exactly as though she has just recently been electrocuted, and knotted arthritic limbs, she makes me smile. She is beautiful in her own unique, hilarious way. I say hilarious, not because of what she looks like, but because of things like:

- She wears necklaces made out of beads that make up the name of her dog, Barney.
- She refuses to let you refer to Barney as a dog.
- She thinks Bonhoeffer had his hands cut off by the Nazis.
- She likes to sing opera even though her voice is deeper than any base I have ever heard.
- She laments over her hammertoe but thinks that if surgery is done on it—she’ll die.
- She can’t hold on to anything—she practically throws pieces of paper across the room in an attempt to turn a page.
- She does that for attention more than anything else.
- She takes two hours to get from West Hollywood to Hollywood.
- I once saw three wrecks nearly occur simultaneously because she was driving at the front of a line of very disgruntled traffic.
- She loudly and randomly makes comments like “that’ll teach ya” to absolutely nothing in particular.
- She speaks German to people when they don’t know her or German.
- She offered to sit on Jack’s’s lap.

...someone actually woke up one day and thought "hey, I should spend hours intricately painting my hand like an eagle and then stick it on the web. Yeah, it'll be freaking awesome."

His hands slide up over my cubicle about three times a day. It just starts with the hands, oddly enough. Then his head pops over the top. Sometimes an awkward, oblique smile and maybe a candy bar are added to the items he pours into my day. He asks questions. Lots of them. Too many, sometimes. I am certain he knows every data point about me there is to know.

“Are you in school?” he asked me for question #24 of the morning.

No, I said.

“Oh yeah? Me neither. I took a semester off.” Awkward silence. So I asked him a question:

Oh, I said. From undergrad?

“No,” he answered, “just regular college.”

He then asked me about where I live—everything about it. When he assumed it was a nice area, (because of the name) I clarified for him.

“There’s a bad area of Pasadena?” he asked with surprise.

Yes. I responded, thinking of the dead body with a sheet over it I passed just a block or two from my apartment two nights before.

The thing is: for whatever reason Pasadena isn’t on people’s radar for dangerous or struggling neighborhoods. Not that it’s the worst--- but it certainly isn’t what people think. Most people associate it with nice shopping, tree-lined streets and the gorgeous capital building. The rough side of Pasadena is just one of the many pockets of LA housing horrible crime, drugs, poverty and children lacking proper education. But no one seems to know or care about these regions. It’s just not on their radar.

There are many locations within the US and outside that are simply not on the radar of the media or the public at large. And, as this article asserts, it’s not strictly a Western problematic phenomenon.

Forgotten conflicts around the world are pockets where human suffering isn’t heard and where the gaze of those who could help the situation, fails to fall. Why is that?

In the meantime, children of those regions are not receiving the education they desperately need. This alone undermines the prospect of a bright, stable economic future for these global “neighborhoods”. But in addition to that-- diseases are spread, people are displaced, violence destroys and the environment is degraded along with the lives human beings. And yet all eyes are fixed on Iraq and other areas in the forefront of common public dialogue.

We have an obligation and a responsibility to remember the neighborhoods of the world that are suffering and in need. We need to spread the word so that at the least the media is paying attention, and at the most, we make attempts to help the problems.

This morning while I stood waiting for the coffee to brew in the kitchen at work, one young woman and I started talking about the gym. Just then another woman, who was at the far side of the kitchen, came over to join in our conversation.

"Hey," she said after commenting on our topic of discussion. "Can I ask you girls a question?"

"Sure," we both said as she reached across us, grabbed a coffee cup and set it on the counter. She then turned around, bent over, and pointed to her butt.

"Can you see what color my underwear is through these..."

As she was about to finish the sentence one of the male lawyers walked through the door to face her rear-end. I wasn't sure if I should say anything so I just bit my lip and waited.

"pants?" she finished and then turned around. Bursting out laughing she about fell over at the sight of him facing her instead of just the other girl and me.

"And guess what I put on my shopping list this morning?" she said to me later when I said it was the funniest thing I'd witnessed all week.

"What?" I asked.

"'Buy white underwear'. It's right next to broccoli."

I love that woman.