The Faces in the Village :)

          There are mean people in the village. 
          It surprises me as much as anyone mainly because, after forty years, I don't understand mean people.  I often wonder why mean people exist.  I will freely admit I don't have answers to those questions.  Mean people, especially mean girls, are just crazy mean people.  The unfortunate lesson I've learned is that mean people come in all shapes and sizes, well dressed and not, young and old, as well as high and low money.  Mean people are everywhere.  I used to think it was an isolated high school girl thing but, as an adult, I am finding it doesn't end.  Mean people, for the most part, just keep on stirring up the meanness and the nice people keep on blooming with kindness.  It just is, for whatever reason and I have no idea what makes mean people mean or why they continue.  I have decided there must be something they get out of it though I have not figured out what that is.
          Thankfully, as I discovered this weekend, the happy faces in the village out number the mean ones.
          I took my kids to see Rio on Friday.  It was a great little movie for the whole family (if you have to see animated movies still, it is good wholesome stuff).  And, no, the mean people did not show up and ruin the movie.  This post is actually about the kind villagers who make the world a better place.
          On the drive over to the movies, on an overpass, I saw a man who had gotten off his bicycle and was standing on the sidewalk.  It obviously caught our attention because he was just standing there.  Keep in mind he was not a fancy bicyclist.  No neon colors, no fancy bike, no skin tight lycra short or a shirt with company sponsors covering the chest and sleeves.  He was just a later middle aged guy with a belly wearing a faded yellow shirt, no names on it, and respectably baggy shorts. 
          He was just your average guy. 
          What made him so noticable (besides standing on the overpass) was that he was kicking at the ground.  It took us just a second, we were driving so we had to look quickly, to notice what he was kicking at.
          It was glass.  He was kicking the glass off the sidewalk to clear the path. 
          What I loved was that he cared enough to stop.  In my mind, he was doing his part to keep his village safe for the other bicyclists, the kids walking, the moms with stroller that would get jammed with glass in the wheels and the dogs on walks with their village friends.  I loved that man because he took the time to stop his bike ride and take care of the village.  And it helped me to see that the happy villagers outnumber the mean villagers.  The mean villagers, for some unknown reason, will go on being mean but, thankfully, we have a whole lot of good meaning, happy villagers that will always bring light to the good and help us to forget the others who for, whatever reason, choose meanness. 
          I love my happy, kind hearted, thoughtful villagers and I am thankful the happy villagers stand up and let themselves be seen.  I certainly need to be reminded on occasion :).