It was 1987 and I had just been offered the promotion to assistant director of field services. Naturally I accepted(please see, The Peter Principle) and I was eager to rush home and tell Cathy.
I stood alone at the bus stop in my own dream world, probably looking like a grinning ape, when a fellow approached me and without saying a word, pressed a paper bill into my hand. I pushed it back and said, "No thank you."
"It's for you," he said in a soft voice.
"Thank you but I cannot accept this", I said, pushing it back at him.
"I just want to help," he insisted.
"Look," I exploded, "I just received a promotion and I earn 50 thousand dollars a year. How much do you make?"
Without a word, the man melted into the distance.
From time to time, even these many years later, I wonder about that exchange. What really drove me to refuse the stranger's offer? Was I attempting to show him that all blind people standing on street corners are not beggars? Was I so inflated by my own self importance that I was highly offended that he thought that just because I was blind that I needed his help?
Whatever it was, I think that I was so self focused that I never took into account how this fellow felt. I cut him off with no regard concerning why he did what he did, or what we could have said to help him see blindness in a better light.
By slamming him to the mat I am sure that I did make a statement about blind people.
Curious Carl
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