August 25, 2006
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Trails of Tears
Today on NPR, All Things Considered ran a feature remembering the
evacuation of New Orleans a year ago. I listened to people
telling their stories of the kindness they received from strangers
along the way. It included everything from necessities such as
food and transportation, to strangers helping evacuees get messages to
family members reassuring them of their safety and hotel clerks looking
the other way when people brought their pets into their rooms.Something in those stories and the evident unexpectedness of such
kindness resonated with an older set of stories I had heard from
various sources. The Cherokees and members of other tribes driven
from their homes in the U.S. Southeast to be resettled in the Oklahoma
Indian Territory about 170 years ago told similar stories of unexpected
help received at the hands of kind strangers.Extraordinary circumstances seem to remind many of us of our universal kinship.
Comments (5)
…wish i had more membrances of ‘unexpected help’. i’ll do it whenever conditions arise, but that puts me in yet another minority, i just can’t help myself.
I wish every day could be extraordinary.
“Extraordinary circumstances seem to reimind many of us of our universal kinship.” I like that statement. And there is a key word in there: many.
I was evicted from my apartment once………
I’m guessing that doesn’t count as extraordinary……..
it’s hard to believe, has it been a year already?!