same kind of different as me

Denver Moore was an African American born in rural Louisiana. Uneducated and growing up with an aunt and an uncle, he started working for white cotton farm owners since a kid, a dead-end job where the white farm owners lent and manipulated the living necessities and crop profits so the "sharecroppers" never got their fair share but trapped ever deeper in debt with their landlords year after year. 

In 1960, at the age of 23, he hopped on a freight train to Fort Worth and began his life as a homeless drifter, hovering between Fort Worth and Los Angeles. Once while away from town after a skirmish with some local gangsters, he attempted a failed robbery on a bus and was arrested and sent back to Louisiana to serve a 20-year prison term. He was released in 1976 and returned to Fort Worth, where he lived on streets around a church mission center that cared for the homeless.

Ron Hall was a white boy born and grew up in a lower-middle-class town of Fort Worth, went to college, met his sweet heart future wife Debbie there, got into sales and investment banking jobs in his early career, before finding his knack of spotting and selling fine arts and became a successful international arts dealer, with a gallery set up in an upscale Fort Worth district just some freeway interchange and a tunnel away from the said church mission center.

In their early 50's, Ron and Debbie started volunteering at the mission center after Debbie had an epiphany of seeing "a poor man who was wise, and by his wisdom he saved the city" (Ecclesiastes 9:15) in her dream. Just a couple weeks after they started their volunteering work there serving food for the homeless, a melee broke out with a huge, angry black man hurling chair across the dining hall floor and shouting and threatening to "kill whoever steal my shoes." As Ron scanned the room for mission personnel to mollify the situation, Debbie leaned in and whispered to him, "that's him... the person in my dream," and urged Ron to befriend him.

Thus began a courtship then an endearing and enduring friendship between Ron and Denver, riding through and after Debbie's struggle and final succumbence to liver cancer at age 55 in 2000.

That's the true story told by the best-seller book "Same Kind of Different as Me," co-authored by Denver Moore and Ron Hall. (http://www.samekindofdifferentasme.com/default.aspx)

You will probably be touched by a few things it describes coming from the sad plights of the homeless people. For example, right after they started serving there, Ron and Debbie noticed people always jockeyed for position near the head of their designated section of the serving line, for fear that the good stuff--meat, for example--might be ladled out already if they were too far behind in the line, and be left with soup or the stale 7-Eleven sandwiches. "When that happened, the looks on their faces told a sad story: As society's throwaways, they just accepted the fact that they survived on leftovers and discards."

One truth confessed by Ron himself was he was not a happy jolly donor of charity work by his own volition initially, but mainly doing it out of love and dedication to his dear wife Debbie. But it didn't take long for Ron to start getting a sense of fulfillment from his work of service. For example, after asking the chef to prepare a little more food so that the street people at the end of line could eat as well as those who slept at the mission, "it thrilled us to serve the street people the good stuff, like fried chicken, roast beef, and spaghetti and meatball... That was the first time I tried to do something to improve the lives of the people Debbie had dragged me along to serve. I hadn't yet touched any of them, but already they were touching me."

Another truth that can be gleaned from the book is the "haves" don't necessarily possess things better than the "have-nots." As a street person, Denver lived in a world with its own code of conduct and spirit of camaraderie (he took it upon himself for years to protect and take care of an old white homeless cripple who lived in his own filth and kept cursing and calling him "nigger") that he felt fairly comfortable with, as well as his simple faith in God, more so than Ron's occasional discontent or grumble with Him (for taking away his beloved wife Debbie, for example) showed.

The biggest truth revealed, however, was by the woman who brought these two diametrically different men together. More than being just another "holiday charity giver," Debbie was a genuinely loving and courageous woman who wanted to know and truly serve these "God's people" on consistent and permanent basis, believing each has gifts--like love, faith, and wisdom--that lay hidden like pearls waiting only to be discovered, polished, and set. As Denver explained how his heart changed from "don't-mess-with-me" to accepting and building true relationships with Ron and Debbie: "Faith-based organizations, government programs, and well-meaning individuals fed me and kept me alive for all those years on the streets, but it was the love of Miss Debbie that caused me to want to make a change in my life."

A good book worth reading.

"I used to spend a lot of time worrying that I was different from other people, even from other homeless folks. Then, after I met Miss Debbie and Mr. Ron, I worried that I was so different from them that we weren't ever going to have no kind of future. But I found out everybody's different--the same kind of different as me. We're all just regular folks walking down the road God done set in front of us... The truth about it is, whether we are rich or poor or something in between, this earth ain't no final resting place. So in a way, we are all homeless--just working our way toward home."   -- Denver Moore

memorables

There are some dates that are memorable to each person. Top on the list, for example, most likely, is your birthday. Then the date you get married (which becomes an Anniversary date with a big A that your wife will not forget even if you did); the dates your kids are born, maybe; the date you win $100 million lottery, for sure; etc.

My personal memorable dates, as far as I can recall, include the date I reported to the boot camp that started my mandatory military service in Taiwan (July 12, 1980), the date I finished it (May 26, 1982, exactly 1 year and 10 months and 2 weeks later); the date I had a horrific car accident on the California freeway and walked away unharmed (January 4, 1983); and the date I came to America, August 16,1982.

That date is memorable because it marks the first time ever I went abroad, leaving a place I was born and raised and lived continuously in for almost 25 years, for a far and foreign land that I had only heard about and saw on TV. Going to the USA for study, that's about the only way many a young man and woman of my generation did to break away from the old and familiar to the new and fancy in a land that waves a promising hand to the world.

Everything was new and titillatingly fun to a young mind then. It's as if just yesterday I was sitting in that tiny Japan Airlines seat, eating tiny Japanese cold noodle, looking out the window, seeing the bright blue skies and white shiny clouds, and the beautiful landscape down below, excitement more than overcoming the bitsy unease for the unknown to come...

And whiff, just by one turn, that yesterday was 30 years ago already, and that barely 25 year-young lad had just turned double-five this past month. 

Remember that "Never trust anyone over 30" proclamation by the baby-boomers when they were at their prime early 20's, that shows how incomprehensible big chronological numbers seem to young people. I remember when I was at grade school age and one day I read on a youth magazine projections of many soon-to-be-accomplished human achievements for the next 30 years to come, and I told my father, finger pointing at one of those projections on page: "there, I can well live to see this thing happen--humans landing on Mars," I said triumphantly, as if that would be my own accomplishment too.

Well, that forecast date had long passed and gone, and no human feet have ever set on Mars yet, and I doubt it will any time soon. Nor are there any automated walkways that transport pedestrians around city blocks day and night, or people living happily in beautiful, sophisticated undersea cities all over the world, for that matter. Straight line projections based on science and technologies alone always neglect to take into account other factors that make people do what they do in the first place.

But many things amazing that I did see happen in the past 30 years: Neil Armstrong's foot-step on the moon, Berlin walls got torn down overnight, Apple beats Microsoft, Korean soap operas trump Japanese ones.

And Y2K crisis was just a hoax of millennium magnitude, AIDS and SARS did not decimate human population, oil and gas did not run dry, the ozone layer did not keep on thinning, as many predicted they would.

We defused the nuclear hot war between two super powers but were then shocked by the havoc natural hazards such as tropical storms and tsunamis could wreak over the world, one of them led directly to a nuclear calamity in Japan. The evil Soviet Empire is no more but no one foresaw a few extreme men could bring down two monumental buildings of New York City in broad daylight on one sunny September morning. Japan's economy did not take over US during the 1980's, but China's may in the 2020's. 

So I just turned 55 mid last month. What significance does that carry? If our dear old sage Confucius is right (which he always is), turning 50 means "I know what on earth am I here for (五十而知天命)," and turning 60 means "wife's nagging is music to my ears (六十耳順)," then turning 55 means I am halfway to realizing that my purpose in life is to hear my wife's nagging as music to my ears soon.

Actually the even more blissful thing for turning 55...are you ready...is you start getting "senior discount" at some shops. I found that out about a couple weeks ago when I called into a local golf club to check out their green fees, and the clerk explained: "If you buy this gift card, you'll get $5 off our senior rate," upon which I interrupted: "I am only 55, so I don't think I qualify as senior..." "Oh no, here in our club 55 is considered senior..." OMG, moment of enlightenment, for the first time in my life--it dawned on me--that I am considered a senior citizen already!! 

I recovered from the shock and sadness fairly quickly, and about one week later, when I was sitting at a Denny's Restaurant for lunch with a friend, I flipped the menu around and saw the "Senior Menu--for 55 and over" on the back. How interesting, as my friend laughingly explained to me, when his wife was pregnant, she seemed to see lots of pregnant people around her all the time. Same logic applies, when you become senior, you start seeing things senior more and more. I turned around and look, and lo and behold, I saw so many senior people sitting around me that I didn't pay attention to just moments ago!

Then the waitress came, and joyfully I told her: "This is your lucky day, your restaurant has the privilege of serving the first ever senior discount meal for me," and went on to order one good country fried steak that was about two dollars cheaper than it normally would be charged. The waitress just smiled and took the order, without ever asking for my ID... Even though I looked too young to be over 55, she decided to give me a pass for the good spirit I showed her, I reasoned.

To close, I'd like to make a projection, especially for those superstitious minded friends of mine: When I turned 30 in 1987, the Wall Street had a "Black Monday" crash in October; when I turned 40 in 1997, we had the Asian Financial Crisis; and when I turned 50 in 2007, of course that's when the current Great Recession started in December that year. So naturally, my friends, I project when I turned 60 in 2017, there is bound to be a world class financial crisis of some sort happening again. Where there are crises, there are opportunities. Take this lead from me, and no need to thank me when you make it, because I will be busy hearing music to my ears all day long by then.