COVER -> RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT
AN OPEN LIFE - "Happy" Thompson, an owner-driver for the Independent Taxi Operators outfit in Boston, was driving past the train station -- South Station, that is -- and the time was 1949. He and his wife lived in Dorchester, a childless couple, with a large, Victorian house on Talbot Avenue. He looked out the window and saw a thin, frail man with his wife and young daughter, standing on the corner. He saw the wind whipping up dirt and dust from the street and he could almost feel the chill in the thin, frail man who had hunched himself down shivering in a short Army-surplus Eisenhower jacket.
Happy got out of the cab and approached the trio. "Where are you going?" he asked.
"Just looking for work, my husband and I," the wife replied. Her New York accent was distinct, pronounced and undeniable.
"What kind of work?" Happy continued.
"Anything," she said, "'cause my husband has been out of work for two years. We thought we would try Boston ... it is so expensive to live in the City." As though it was not expensive to live in Boston!
It came out later that the man was a World War II veteran who had had a very difficult time returning to civilian life after the horrors he had seen in the European theater. The night sweats, the crying out in his sleep, the tremors and shakes whenever a gun was discharged or a loud sound was produced stayed with him.
"Where are you staying?" Happy asked.Happy and his wife, Dottie, were devout Pentecostal Christians. The trio at the train station, the Shulmans, were Jewish, who celebrated Jewish holidays but were neither Orthodox nor deeply religious about it. Through the years, the daughter attended both Pentecostal services and Jewish holidays at the Temple.The man replied, "We haven't had a chance to look for anything, but we have no money. We can stay in the train station or bus station. We have done that before."
"What about the little girl?" Happy inquired.
"She's been with us all along, she knows the ropes, don't you?" the thin man said as he patted his daughter on the back.
"Listen here," Happy said, "You just come along with me and we will see to it that you have a place to stay."
Happy never asked his wife. He never gave it a second thought.
They went to Dorchester, a working-class neighborhood of Boston -- not yet integrated -- and they stayed.
I do not remember the parents' names. The daughter's name, like Mrs. Thompson's, was Dorothy.
Dottie Thompson developed a horrible cancer, and Mrs. Shulman took care of her. While she was not a nurse, Mrs. Shulman had worked as an aide in hospitals from time to time. She quit her job to take care of her friend, who took three years to die an agonizing, painful death.
At first, Happy had Mr. Shulman drive his cab the half-days -- or nights -- when he was not driving. They each worked seven days a week for years. Then Mr. Shulman saved some money and bought his own cab, and they each hired relief drivers. They were not wildly successful, but they managed to earn a modest living and prospered in that big Victorian house in Dorchester on Talbot Avenue.
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For over twenty years, the strange meeting on a cold winter's night in front of South Station had translated into a rich, rewarding life together for people who -- under any other circumstances -- would doubtless have never met. And yet without the sudden generosity and humanity of Happy that night, there would never have been such a future for any of the five of them. Years later, I lived in Jackson, Wyoming. In the John Dodge Subdivision, along the Snake River, the first million-dollar properties in Jackson Hole, a family from Westchester County, New York, had a house. The house could sleep around twenty in individual bedrooms, each with a private shower and parlor. This couple also had an apartment in Manhattan, another house in Florida, a "cottage" in southern France, and a vineyard in Chile. The Jackson, Florida, France and Chile residences were used two to three weeks a year.
When they traveled, the wife brought along her hair dresser. Their chef also traveled with them -- as did their pilot, who also functioned as chauffer. The couple was childless - intentionally so I had been told.They were a fundamentally, thoroughly unhappy couple. They complained of loneliness and isolation, even though they populated their houses with their wealthy friends who -- like them - had multiple residences each. They deplored the shallowness of relationships, the insincerity of "friends" and "friendship." They spent a boundless treasure on themselves, daily pampered with totally self-indulgent favors and treats beyond imagining. Yet nothing and no one could make them happy.
Had this couple seen the trio on the street on a cold winter's night, shivering in the cold, given their social Darwinist ideas about the rest of society and economics, they would have doubtless blamed them for their adversity and pain: their own damned fault they are in such a mess, and why should anyone be obligated to help them? This pair was never obligated to do anything, such was their wealth and independence.
Recently we have been told that the Internal Revenue Service has reported on the generosity of Americans, as they report their charities and contributions. And once again, we are told that the poor do more, the poor pay more and the poor get more done for those in need. No surprise.
At the same time, the Westchester couple resent every cent of taxes and work endlessly to limit their tax "obligations." They would never and could never understand the fulfillment that comes from generosity and kindness, especially on a cold winter's night. I remember Happy and the Shulmans fondly and I recall what generosity and kindness can accomplish. They were my neighbors.
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