Text msg I sent to my family:

There are some hard-working people in this world. One of them is a handyman from Hollywood, Florida named Freddy who just left my place. He was replacing my old hot water heater (I’ve only been without hot water for about a month) with a new razz-matazz digital one! 

Freddy is in his fifties. I asked him if he needed my help getting my old tub hot water heater into his pick-up. After hearing and feeling something crack in my right inner elbow, just a tendon or something and I have lots of those, we succeeded. 

Since my car clutch conked out today and my son had to push me across the finish line to home, I then asked Freddy to sit in my car and feel for himself my clutch. “😲” by Freddy. He then got on the phone with one of his contacts and explained the clutch problem, “kaput”, and the guy is going to come out to my place Thursday, when Freddy will complete the digital hot water installation and fix my clutch. Great success.

My son responded:

This type of community, local support is something I value more and more as I age. [“As I age”: He’s 35 🙄] Similar to our relationship with Grouchy Store [local convenience store] Muhammad. Similar to Robert, our pharmacist. Over and over, local support has proven to me that it’s far more important and underrated than national issues in the short term. 

National politics, or even state politics are losing their value in my eyes, when compared to county, city, or district elections. The latter will literally impact you directly and immediately. 

It is vital for us to zoom out every now and again, to see the big picture. Of course. 

However, I’m starting to believe that on a day to day basis, it’s far more advantageous to zoom in. Notice the small stuff. We don’t do it enough. 

What an awesome story of someone I’d consider to be an extremely valuable figure in our local society.