Don and the Wallet

The Power of Beloved Community

You’re walking down the street and you see a wallet that has, say, $500 in cash lying on the sidewalk in front of the corner store. What do you do? Do you immediately pick it up and pocket the cash and toss the wallet? Do you look around to see if it might be a trap or prank, then take the cash? Do you pick it up, then ask the store clerk if anyone reported having lost a wallet? Whatever action you take, you’re no doubt running this scenario through some kind of cost/benefit analysis, one that involves weighing the reward ($500) against the risks (getting in trouble, feeling guilty). Much of our daily behavior revolves around identifying opportunities and seizing them.

The whole wallet thing happened to Don, one of the twin uncles I grew up with and who was eight years older than me. Only it wasn’t a store and a sidewalk; it was a dark movie theater floor. Don’s high school job was picking up all the debris people left behind, taking out all the trash and cleaning the floors. He’d always tell me about the crazier things he found, everything from bras to shoes. That night, he’d found someone’s wallet. We opened it together, and in it was what I remember being a ton of money. I asked Don what he was going to do, and he said, without hesitation, “Return it.”

Now keep in mind that people aren’t particularly kind to theater attendants, if they acknowledge their existence at all. So it would’ve been quite easy for Don to feel like keeping the money was a bit of divine retribution, but he didn’t. There was also virtually no risk involved in keeping it. If anyone asked if he’d seen it, all he had to say was, “No, sorry.” Instead, he returned the wallet, calling the number of the person listed inside. The white-identifying person who’d lost it was both stupefied and overwhelmed with gratitude. That was his entire paycheck. He’d splurged and taken his daughter to see a matinee earlier and didn’t realize the wallet was gone until they were back home.

He asked Don why he’d do this for “a guy like me”, essentially for a white guy, in 1970s Birmingham. Don simply said, “It’s what I’d want someone to do for me.” Don didn’t articulate it this way, but his response was reflective of the woman who’d raised both of us; his mother and my grandmother. It was she who taught us that we, through our daily actions, are choosing the people we’ll become.

But I’d be much older before grasping the social implication; that what we do in situations like these reveal and cement what we believe to be true about society; whether we see the world around us as a jungle or a village, whether it’s “every man for himself” or “all for one and one for all”. Whether that person is a stranger or a neighbor.

We often think of neighborliness as a bit of a “soft” quality. But it’s actually one of the most powerful social forces in existence. (Speaking of, if you’re interested in reading why I call Mister Rogers, one of my personal heroes, the Patron Saint of Neighbors, that story can be found here.) It’s how each of us, individually shapes who, collectively, we’ll be — a hostile territory or a beloved community.

I was thinking about this concept, how we’re constantly deciding to choose to see the world and each other one day while on a walk along a side street near where I live. The street itself is beautiful, full of leafy trees and nice single-family homes. There’s also a definite sense of community. For instance, the evening of winter solstice, the sidewalks are lined with luminaries that each household puts out, and there are decorations up for most every holiday. Everything from “Black Lives Matter” and “Be Kind” signs to the house that collects for the local food pantry indicates people who care.

But it’s also possible for even neighbors like these to fracture and become factionized. It starts with little things, really. For instance, some of the homes have driveways and others don’t, so the driveway people could start to find themselves increasingly frustrated by those driveway-less people taking up all the parking in front of their homes.

Some people keep their lawns up meticulously; rake the leaves in the fall and clear the snow from the sidewalk within hours of a snowfall. Others, for a variety of reasons, working double shifts, caring for an elderly parent, etc., simply don’t have the time. Some homes have children that play outside and run up and down the street. Others have retired persons who could be bothered by the noise.

Some are dog owners, and therefore, are more understanding of everything from barking to peeing on roses. Others might be annoyed by doggy behavior. Some households faithfully attend religious services and others never attend, and both can conclude that the other is out of touch. And of course, some are paying rent, and others, a mortgage.

It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but there are times I’ve even caught myself acting like I live in a jungle rather than a village, sizing people up and dismissing them. For instance, I think of the neighbors who used to gather and smoke not far from my front door; tempting me to break the world down into (inconsiderate) smokers and (considerate) nonsmokers. Until I saw one of them delivering food to an older person in the complex; something I’d never done.

Then, there was the guy on the loud motorcycle with long biker hair at the gas station, who drove after me and flagged me down because I’d left my credit card on top of the pump. In both cases, I’d, without regard for their personhood or respect for their humanity, assigned them to the “bad people” category; without even being aware of how I’d violated them; the assumptions I’d made about them. Their actions would confront me, however; showing how they were not just good people, but in some ways, better than the person I was being.

“To assume,” Sgt. Donovan Smith, my gruff, but outstanding ROTC commander back in high school, would tell us, “is to make an ass out of you and me.” I think about that often in my daily encounters with others. I also think back to Don and the wallet, and whether I see the world as a jungle, where we’re all strangers competing to stay alive, or as a village, where we’re all making each other’s lives better.

Because once we start dividing the world into “people like them”, and “people like us”, it’s hard to stop. And by not returning their wallet, we’re creating a world where ours also won’t be returned to us.