Don’t Judge

In Leslie where I grew up we had a Mexican family whose 2 kids (brother and sister) came to our high school. They were very different from the rest of us in many ways. Some of the kids didn’t treat them very kindly and others just ignored them. They were behind me a grade so I didn’t interact much with them although I felt bad for them for the way they were treated.

Dad had a swamp at the back of the farm that he had drained with a ditch to a small creek so he had 2 fields back there of dark rich dirt. The Mexican family rented one to plant sugar beets on shares (Dad would get 1/3 of the profits).

Dad and I had a conversation about how they were treated in school and he said, “don’t judge someone because of where they came from and who you know nothing about”.

So sometimes when I wasn’t busy I went back to work with them and they were hard workers, the whole family, they put me to shame. But they were really friendly and seemed to tolerate my inability to keep up. I became close friends with them and when school started again we hung out together from time to time.

That lesson I learned helped me look at others as an opportunity to make a new friend.

Fast forward to 2012 when I took a job working for a company contracted to clean return rental cars for Enterprise Rental Cars. I had a man on my team who used to drive 18 wheelers. I never knew his real name because he was known as Grumpy. He never smiled, he pushed people away by angry words or looks. I ask him one day how he got the nickname grumpy and all he said was my grand kids gave it to me and walked away.

One day at lunch he was setting on the steps by himself so I sat down beside him. To this day I don’t know how we got started talking, but he gave me his story.

He liked his alcohol, when he wasn’t driving he was drinking and his kids never saw him sober. His oldest son followed in his footsteps, and he progressed to drugs mixed with alcohol. One day he got a call that his son was in an accident and had been killed and had killed the family in the other car. He said that he knew it was his fault because of his example and he stopped drinking that very day. He said, with tears in his eyes, he has to live with that every day.

So I have learned to take a little stroll in the other man’s shoes.

Comments

  1. LeciaJuly 10, 2025 at 5:10 PM

    My favorite post so far. Beautiful ✨

    ReplyDelete
  2. ConnieBJuly 14, 2025 at 6:36 PM

    I remember you telling me this story in almost real time and I think about it often. I have told it to many people because it's just such a good story!

    ReplyDelete

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