Pro-social community heroes

Last night, my neighbors were finishing up work on a “float” we have been building for a local parade.

This is not just a regular parade, but is hosted by the Cleveland Museum of Art, and features all these cool artists and complex, beautiful puppetry. I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but it’s amazing. I think if this parade was in a different city (a New York or something, somewhere more fashionable, a national media center) it would be pretty famous.

Anyway, I have a neighbor who’s involved with it and he suggested we participate this year. He wanted to construct an ice cream truck out of wood. And his vision was all the children would dress up as different ice cream treats.

It is just about finished, so last night a couple dads jumped in the front. The ice cream truck is man powered, like a Flintstone car. And we took it for a test drive down the road.

The neighborhood girls were loaded up. And the giant 6-foot, spinning paper mache ice cream cone was mounted to the top. We were blasting “Genius of Love” by the Tom Tom Club (you’d DEFINITELY know it if you heard it.) And we paraded down the street.

EVERYONE stopped and smiled and pulled out their cameras. Drivers slowed down. Motorcyclists honked. It was the most disarming and silly and surprising thing to see a wooden ice cream truck with horns mounted on the hood and a bunch of little girls dancing inside, come up the road on a random Thursday night.

It was so fun and refreshing to do that. Sometimes I get a little annoyed when people discuss ART in a breathy, self-serious way. But that was a really beautiful example of how it can bring people together.

Anyway, the guy who pulled the whole thing together, I was just feeling a bit of admiration for him. He’s a pretty humble guy. I think certain people just have a gift for this though, bringing people together and giving them exactly what they need socially to feel human and accepted and at ease.

Because of everything that happened the last few years, how awful it all was, I have a new appreciation for people like this. If you look, if you’re lucky, they are everywhere.

I’m really lucky because my mom is one of those people. She came in town yesterday. (She lives about 100 miles away.) She’s retired now but she keeps very busy volunteering. She was late because she had organized a trip to a butterfly house with her high school class. She helps convene that group, women in their early ‘70s.

Anyway, she was brimming with enthusiasm about it when she arrived at our house. She kept pulling out her phone and showing us pictures of butterflies and telling us how they eat overripe fruit through their proboscis, which is like a nose. It was kind of annoying, because she’s my mom, but ultimately, also endearing. All those women are so lucky to have someone like her to pull them out of their dreary day to day lives and get them to tour a butterfly house.

I wanted to include a third person but I forget who it was. It’s really early. My point anyway, is all our communities that contain a person like this have been so blessed: The quietly pro-social convener, fun maker. The comforter and listener.

Sometimes these people get a lot of recognition, but sometimes they just kind of do their thing. People genuinely love them. And they hold up whole communities that are the basis for a good life. These people are everywhere and they are complete gems.

There’s an idea for some folks, that a good life comes from striving and achievement. At the end, you receive recognition or rewards. Money and titles. But that is just one path, and maybe not even the most important way to contribute imo.

Often it’s people who don’t even get a lot of recognition or have a lot of prestige I find myself admiring so much. To have this kind of a role in your community, maybe just once in a while, in a little way, is something I think we can all aspire to. Or at least appreciate this kind fundamental human greatness when we witness it.