Bakersfield.com

By: Heather Ijames

I opened a door for a woman with a walker the other day at the courthouse after I realized she was pushing the handicapped automatic opening button with no success. As I held the door open for her, I noticed two disturbing details about the scene around us. One, there were two security guards and a sheriff’s deputy only a few feet away on the inside of the building watching her push the button like it was a scene on television, but not moving an inch to lend a hand. And two, there was a group of five middle aged adults a few feet from the outside of the doors, who were caucusing on how poorly the courthouse allocates its funds because they could not fix a simple button to help an innocent little old lady into the courthouse. Talking about it, but not actually helping anyone. 

            I was wondering who the bigger culprit was. The men trained to protect and serve who actually just sit and stare, or the civilians who are too busy blaming others than lifting a finger themselves. But, rather than spending time figuring it out, I was grateful I was taught well enough to spring forward to help someone in need without hesitation. 

            When I was younger, my grandfather watched me in the afternoons while I waited for my parents to come home from work. I bring this up because he was the one who taught me well in these regards. The man had seen it all. Born and raised in wartime Greece, came over to Ellis Island without most of his family, and made money bootlegging booze from over the Canadian border during the Prohibition. He also swore to me his brother was a part of the lesser known Detroit based Greek Mafia and would often remind me that the most loved job of his life was being a florist. 

            He would have lectured me for hours if he had seen me be one of the many standing by not opening the door for the woman. He taught me mercilessly that you aren’t worth anything if you don’t do anything. Thus, may I suggest that the failure to act is a failure to care; and the failure to care is why we all normally have something to wake up and complain about. The solution is within us. On three now: one, two, three…ACT