Saturday on a holiday weekend brings a little bustle to this small town on the river close to the beaches. It can get downright touristy at certain times of the year, but it maintains that quaint small town feel. It’s easy to let your guard down. It's the kind of town where they always say you’d never expect something like that to happen in a small town like this.
The café which opens to the street on the front side as well as to the street on the other front side is small and popular. The sidewalk out front with the railroad tracks running across the street has five wrought iron tables, each with four wrought iron chairs. Today at lunch the table farthest to the right sat two young couples, each mother with an infant. One mother would breast feed twice and change the baby’s diaper and both families would leave before it happened.
The table just to the left of the front door had two women, a man, and a brown and black dachshund on the lap of the lady who faced out, her back to the door. They spoke French, appeared to be young retirees, from Canada most likely. Canadians have a bad reputation in this part of Florida. They often impede traffic, or are rude to store clerks. Perhaps it is just a difference in culture and the two do not understand one another. They say getting to know someone, learning to understand, finding a common bond, is the best security against violence. That’s what they say.
The tables outside the café are under a pleasant awning with potted palms loosely framing the eating area. People are still able to walk by, however, between the row of five tables and the street where cars are diagonally parked. The young families left. The Canadians spoke softly in French except to the waiter, when their English carried no accent, and were lively and pleasant, chuckling from time to time.
A couple of doors down, there is a new frozen yogurt place and a young mother and father and little boy about five years old have come out and are walking slowly down the street, the boy sets the pace as he licks his multicolored yogurt cone. They take their time, enjoying the day. As they approached the tables, the dog, having seen something down the other way, barked. This caught the attention of the little boy with butter colored hair. He stands barely taller than the height of the dog on the lady’s lap. He says very quietly, “Can I pet your puppy?” The lady nods and says yes. The father says to let him hold his ice cream cone and the boy turns to his father and hands over the cone with total abandon then touches the “puppy” on the head with a light hand and strokes him attentively and deliberately all the way down his back to the tail. He has been taught how to pet a puppy. The father’s “be gentle now” was unnecessary, but likely a reassurance to the owner that the boy will be gentle. The boy strokes him a second time and smiles at the lady then reaches back to his father for the cone of yogurt. His father says, “What do you say?” and the little boy looked the lady in the eyes and smiled sweetly and said, “Thank you.” She nodded back to him. “You’re welcome.” The family resumed their walk down the street.
This holy, sacred, perfectly ordinary exchange between strangers connected through respectful request to touch and generous acceptance to be touched brought peace to the world. Tears to the eyes. And it happened here. It happened in this small town. More of this, please. More human beings letting down their guard for the sake of trusting a brief moment of connection. Polite, respectful, generous. Aware and open to their surroundings. Giving. And receiving.
