Along time ago I read what I thought was a profound quote about the difference between, shall we say, “book learning” and the real world.
It went like this: “Someone who has a theory is no match for someone who has had an experience.”
I realized the truth of that last week. No, not reading some vast philosophical tome, or in a weighty intellectual debate. It was in a local restaurant.
Let me explain. In the 45 years I’ve been doing this job I have attended approximately 700 city council meetings and have stayed awake for at least 650 of them.
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard representatives of one organization or another appear and seek support for some event they’ve got planned.
They always say “we’re going to bring a lot of people to town.”
I know that’s true, but it seems like I never stop and think about what it really means.
Last week my wife and I went through our usual “what are we going to eat tonight?” soul searching.
This is not the usual husband-and-wife give-and-take discussion. That’s because both of us want the other to make that decision.
(I found out a long time ago that in the inevitable loving warfare of marriage it is much safer for me to declare myself a prisoner of war, rather than a combatant, at the beginning. It saves a lot of time.)
So we ended up at a buffet. We’ve been there scores of times but last week it was different. There were a couple of dozen tiny girls, and assorted parents and siblings, running around in blue shirts.
Sue wondered what was going on and I enlightened her, noting this was a tee-ball team in town for the state tourney.
She wanted to know how I knew that and I pointed out it was in The Reporter.
Also, it was printed all over their shirts.
Lots of those shirts had the names of the girls. Quite a few of the adults had shirts in support of their kids.
Stuff like (not real names) “Mary’s Dad,” “Susie’s Mom” and, my favorite: “Janie’s Bonus Dad.” Now that’s a family with a kids-first attitude.
They weren’t from Rock-dale. I don’t know what town the team was from but I do know one thing. There was a lot of love in that room and I don’t mean only for the pizza.
What could possibly be more important than supporting your kids?
They moved a number of tables together so they could sit as a team and kept up a happy chatter throughout their meal, with the usual kids running around and being kids.
I told my wife I was not going to mess with one family since the name on the backs of their shirts was the same as a famous New York City Mafia family.
Sue tried to pretend she wasn’t with me, which is a common occurrence.
Once they stopped and took a team photo and that’s when it hit me.
This was, in experience, what all those people at city council meetings have been saying all these years. They do bring people to town and it does help our merchants.
Multiply this several dozen times and you see how important events like these are to the life of Rockdale.
And, I’m happy to say, local folks who were eating there were welcoming and supportive of our visitors.
I’ll bet when the blue shirts got back to wherever they live they had a positive feeling about us.
Never found out if they won. But Rockdale did.
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