An Apartment Here in Town

As a kid I heard the Garrison Keeler "Prairie Home Companion" reading about walking down a side walk in a neighborhood. He talks about looking at the picture window of homes on the street and wondering what was happening in the home. He then tells quaint little stories about what we believe are typical American scenes. I always loved that story and have romanticized it many times in my mind. There is a problem however.Once I grew up when I looked at those picture windows, I knew in some of them there was not any romance, only suffering. But just in the same way that romance and suffering are a part of the daily fabric behind the windows of our homes so is the idea that what is "American" has many different scenarios.When I walked into the living room of an apartment here in town last week, I thought about this story and chuckled. I had come from my separate part of the neighborhood to meet Robert so we could go home and in I come to a most interesting scene. The living room was a long thin rectangle. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with embroidered curtains kept in place by colored push pins intermittently placed. On the floor of the room first was a rattan shade used a throw rug. Next to it on the floor was a large piece of linoleum that looked like a fake wood floor and then another rattan shade. I knew that the linoleum was used as the dining room table for the family and also for the anyone who happened to come during dinner time. I have often seen twenty people eating on that mat.I dropped my shoes at the door and walked in. Lining three of the living room walls were white plastic lawn chairs. On the fourth wall is a gap between the chairs and then in the middle of the wall stood sat a few chairs. On the chair in the middle of this last set sat a man I knew to be the chief. In front of him stood the object of my search, Robert. Beside the chief sat a couple of other men, part of the elders council. Robert stood in front of them feet planted, legs spread a bit but to my relief he was not sitting. I knew that was a sign he didn't intend to stay long, he planned to get his business done and go. Robert's hands were dug into the pockets of his blue jeans, he was bent at the waist leaning into the chief a bit and the four of them were talking in quiet tones, not whispering just quiet. A solution was reached, a time set for a future meeting and the shaking of hands. Robert turned, smiled at me, waved to the other men in the room seated on the chairs lining it and we left.I knew that when we left the next man would come and stand or sit beside the chief and the elders and that they would continue to solve the issues of their community.In Boise, the chief, the man who people in Boston, in New York, and in Africa contact or come to see to ask questions of, to get guidance from works as a janitor. He mops floors, cleans toilets and works hard.Perhaps the next janitor you see will just be royalty. The old saying "Can't judge a book by its cover" is so true in this situation.