A Glimmer

I was sitting at a stop light for a very busy intersection.  The young man, in the truck next to me, was busy texting on his phone.  He looked up briefly, every few seconds to see if the light had changed.  I wanted to tell him that unless the person behind him was on his phone too, he would not have to wonder if the light changed.  People here honk if the car ahead of them has not moved within a millisecond of the light changing.  Then, I wanted to tell him to get off the phone and pay attention.  I thought better of it and turned my attention back to the traffic whizzing by at break neck speeds.  Many of them were either talking on their phone or looking down into their lap.  

My mind began to go into the old broken record mode, the one with a skip, about what is happening to our youth with the onslaught of cell phone use, but then something else popped in.  

I was taken back, just a few days, to time spent on the west coast of the country.  The two oldest grandsons were there too.  The youngest of this duo was rather distraught because his phone was on the blink and he did not have a basketball to replace it with.  Luck was on his side when he discovered a volleyball in the garage.  Shortly there after, it was named Wilson and it never left his side.  Although this place did not offer a basketball hoop, the house next door did.  A day later, the tenants there, vacation over, had moved on.  Grandson #2 was behind this house in an instant, happily shooting hoops.  This lasted for a couple of days, then, the next group of vacationers arrived.  Within this new arrival where two young girls.  Their ages were close to the boys'.

Once this was discovered, on our side of the fence, things began to get interesting.  If only for a brief moment in time.  There seemed to be some obstacle on how to meet these two new comers.  I suggested just walking over and saying "hi".  That was met with a look the was akin to what they might have looked like if I had told them their house was on fire.  

The grand solution came and Wilson went flying over the fence with a post-it note stuck on his roundness.  The message, although not an original quote, was a phone number and the words "I'm awesome".  A short time later, a small paper airplane, made from a sheet of a note sized legal paper, came sailing back across the fence.  It contained two social media addresses and a smear of what may have been hot pink lipstick.  Not long after this grand fishing expedition, both parties lost interest, mainly because the girls were from Sweden and the language barrier wasn't worth the effort.

The light turned green and I made my way across the intersection in the left turn lane.  The young man in the truck went straight and I hoped he made it to where ever he was going.  When I arrived home, I walked to my desk and looked at that small paper airplane. It reminded me of the glimmer of hope that I had been a witness to.  A glimmer of hope that the human race will continue on.