Heart of America can still be found
Last year, 2024, our good friends Al and Dee from college days celebrated their 50th Anniversary. We also celebrated our 50th. This year our good friends also from college days, Jeff and Gloria, celebrated 50 years. And we’re not the only ones.
In college and with my considerable health problems old age seemed unattainable. Keith and I dealt with the present, living, dealing with heath issues, raising kids, welcoming grandchildren into our lives.
Meanwhile the culture went from tolerance, we don’t agree but still can communicate and treat one another with respect, to total disrespect for those who disagree. Someone disagrees and anger spews in language making a person wonder about the sanity of such fury. Others cut off those who think, speak or vote differently. It is sad when hatred rather than tolerance, respect and caring sometimes seems to dominate public discourse.
Media is filled with this garbage that makes us feel there is no kindness left. But I can tell you, America, the America we know and love still exists. Controversy and falsehood may fuel many including those in government or media positions, but much of America hasn’t changed.
Keith and I are not young anymore. We’ve seen change, felt the anger, but there is more. Faith, family and caring still exists.
Turned out the celebration for Jeff and Gloria was in a Yanney Park building we didn’t even know existed. Unlike the Mitzi Pavilion our family has used in the past, the ERC building is quite the walk from the parking lot.
Thankfully the day wasn’t blaring hot. We’d picked up my sister-in-law Lorene before heading to Yanney. At this stage of life, Keith’s health is on par with mine. After we parked, Keith took the gift we brought and headed to the building once I told him not to wait. (He needed to sit.)
Lorene took my arm to help balance me and keep me from falling on that long walk. She did it despite her own pain and health considerations. Several greeted us as they walked by on that long walk. Closer to the building of the celebration, a young man Grant came out. He got on my other side and took my arm. It was very sweet. He helped balance me even more. That helped as I walked over bricks. His dad Joshua, Jeff and Gloria’s oldest son, held the door wide open for us to enter. He made sure I was settled in a chair and got me water.
Throughout the evening, I did not move, but those I hadn’t seen for years, took time to talk to me, encourage me, even give a quick hug or two. So many came, I had to smile. Of course, Jeff and Gloria were very close friends and had been there for us through the good times as well as the difficult times of health, grief and more. It was obvious they’d been a blessing to many others as well.
The room was filled with quiet conversation, laughter and caring of those from very different economic, racial, and who-knows-what backgrounds. A few had been missionaries, giving theirs lives to share hope and faith. Differences didn’t matter. This was and is the real America.
As the evening wore on, I tried not to think of the long walk back to the car. The more tired I am the higher my fall risk. Lorene voiced my fear, but we had no answer.
Our friend Rachel, a nurse, thought of that as well. She discovered a wheelchair in a back room. Thanks to Rachel her brother Daniel, and that wheelchair, I got safely back to our car.
Forget the harsh public discourse. Don’t believe what is said about America. The heart of America is in the everyday citizen who still believes in faith, family and reaching out with a helping hand of caring and kindness.
© 2025 Carolyn R Scheidies
Published in Kearney Hub 9/11/22025
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