Years ago, someone I know opened a candy shop near both a university and a high school: target audiences. It did so well she opened a second one in another town.

The guy she hired to run that one was a recent graduate of a top-notch culinary academy, I guess getting in on the ground floor.

This was when political ads were being run warning of a bogeyman–remember when superpredator got smushed into its own single word for awhile? Ie big and black and tall and on illegal drugs that supposedly made him extra strong. After all, the Willie Horton ads had worked for Bush and Dukakis’s candidacy had gone down in flames.

Her employee was a large African-American man.

Her husband was the one who told me of the phone calls–multiple, he reiterated over my stunned disbelief, not just one and not just one person, of people telling them they would not step foot in that second store unless they fired the guy. They had walked in, seen him, and walked right back out.

Instead she offered him a job at the first store and closed the second and made a point of telling that town why. She wasn’t going to be in any way associated with a populace that treated a good man that way and they should be ashamed of themselves.

That was thirty years ago.

Today I was in that town. My audiologist is there, and my hearing aids needed cleaning. Since I have a lot of knitting I want to do on that afghan I brought it with me, carry-around project or not. They warned me it would be awhile, and I knew that, no worries.

So I had a front row seat.

A couple came in. Mid-eighties, easily. He was tall and stooped and walked carefully; she was just as old but more easily mobile. Perfectly coiffed in the kind of hairsprayed upswept curls my grandmother’s generation regularly saw their beauticians for, and perfectly sculpted and tummy-tucked in her skin-tight clothes. She looked seriously about 85 pounds but for the improbably large chest. There is a posh country club nearby and all they needed was the golf cart to complete the look.

He settled down on the couch and she went to the desk. I had started an afghan row with its five dangly balls of yarn.

I finished the row.

Started another one.

Finished it.

Finally, she walked back towards her husband and did a disdainful little yank with her head back towards the young African-American woman who had been trying to help her with all the graciousness one could ever ask for.

There had been others before her who had appointments (including me.) They were going to have to wait.

My friend’s story of long ago came flooding back and I knew I had to do something to show support without putting the young woman on the spot. How do you do this right especially when you know you didn’t hear everything. But I’d seen.

Turns out that technician was the one to bring my finished hearing aids out from the back room two thirds of an afghan row later (and after the couple had left.) The insides had collected water because I’d let it go too long since the last cleaning and that means it takes awhile to dry the electronics safely. So mine took longer.

No worries, truly.

As I put them in I looked at her and asked a little sheepishly, knowing it would be cutting into her work time, Can I show off my moose?

Sure!

I spread the afghan out a bit so she could see and she exclaimed over it and reached to touch that inviting, beautiful wool as I held it so she could. I thanked her; she beamed; she told me, sounding less convinced of it as the words were coming out of her mouth, I could never have the patience for that, while her face started to say maybe I could? I actually want to, no really want to now…

I said, You start off small and work your way up.

Her face! Made me wish I could have taken the time to teach her on the spot.

There’s a yarn store maybe two blocks away; maybe we will have a new knitter soon.

But I loved that the fact that I’m one gave us a means to make each other’s day and, as much as could be done, make up for that earlier experience.

—

(Let me add here that having written most of this earlier and walked away to think about it some more, I’ve reflected on how hard it is to be elderly and stuck being a caretaker, if that was their case. And as someone whose own husband is 15″ taller and quite a bit bigger I know there are limitations on how one would be able to manage. But you just don’t demean others who are trying their best to do right by you. You just don’t. She should have known by now at long last that treating others badly can never make her happier.)