For, or against?
That seems to be how we describe ourselves these days: Are we for President Donald Trump or against him?
But, we are a lot more than that.
If you don’t believe me, come grocery shopping with me some day.
Where I shop over on Lake Street, the store has turned laudable caution into liability mania.
The store’s staff is quite right in wanting to make sure shopping carts aren’t left rolling around the parking lot bouncing off and damaging cars.
Toward this laudable end, store employees prowl the parking lot gathering up all the shopping carts and rolling them inside the store.
The result is there are few if any shopping carts outside in the cart returns.
This creates a problem. Many shoppers – and I am one – latch onto a cart in the parking lot and use it as a walker to get into the store.
But if there aren’t any carts in the returns, we – the mobility challenged – are kind of marooned.
I then have two choices. I can use my walker to get inside the store. But, then, the walker fills up the cart I pick up inside the store, leaving little room for groceries. Or, I can wait and depend upon the kindness of strangers.
Good luck with that, you may be saying to yourself.
More Top Picks Asus Rog Strix Scar 18 Review
And in this for or against atmosphere I was talking about you could be right.
But, you’re not.
Often – more often than you might think – when other shoppers notice me or someone else struggling toward a shopping cart, they hurry over with a cart and cheerful word.
When I thank them, they almost always reply, “No problem. I hope someone will help me if I need it some day.”
And that’s how I like to think of us, of Americans.
Not as for or againsters.
But as fellow human beings, some of whom need help, some of whom offer help.
When they offer help, no one asks me if I am for or against Trump. Underneath it all, we Americans are a generous and helpful people.
There are people and issues that divide us. But, over time, those differences have a way of being resolved.
Thanks for lending me a helping hand.
And, yes, I’ll do the same for you.
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.