Attitudes

For the last five years, Dave and Sandy were weekly customers at our now defunct wine bar.  Always low key and friendly, it was fun chatting with them when they stopped in to pick up something for dinner, or while they spent the afternoon sitting at a table sipping wine.  Now retired, they describe themselves as old hippies and in a sense they are.  They grow lots of their own food in the back yard of their tidy home, they can fruits and vegetables which they share with friends, they even make their own laundry soap.  They always look for ways to help in the community and each have a Facebook page with posts about helping public schools, loving animals and the environment, and fighting narrow minded conservatism.

On the very last day the store was to be open, they came in and spent the afternoon and evening reminiscing with other customers, sharing wine and appetizers, and lamenting the closing of the store. By closing time there were just three of them; Dave and Sandy, and a volunteer named Ron who was washing glasses and wiping tables.  The couple was admittedly tipsy and had called their son to drive them home.  

A tall man in old clothes came through the door and sat at the bar.  He was unshaven and the dirty cap on his head covered most of his shaggy brown hair.  Dave picked up the bottle that he and Sandy had been sharing and poured the man a glass of wine and sat down next to him and began to chat.  The man wasn't making much sense and said something about the FBI watching him.  Sandy playfully tugged at the brim of the man's cap and made a silly comment.  The man became agitated and said that touching his hat was assault and he threatened to call his father who was a police chief.  Dave slowly slid the stranger's wine glass away from him which further aggravated the man.  Eventually Dave and Sandy's son arrived and he took his parents to the car, while Ron persuaded the man to leave.

Dave and Sandy and their adult son were sharing this story with us over dinner the other night.  They assured us that they had only meant to be friendly with the man, and hadn't meant to cause trouble, and it was true; Dave and Sandy were mellow, gentle people.  They laughed and shook their heads, calling the stranger crazy, an idiot and a jerk and made fun of him for threatening to call his father as if he were a kid.  I suggested that he might be mentally ill but no one seemed to hear.  Kevin recalled that Ron, the volunteer who was working there at the time, had referred to the man as a douchewagon.

If I was minding the store all by myself one night and this man walked in and began talking nonsense, I would have been scared.  But that evening at dinner no one talked about being afraid, and my "mentally ill" comment was lost.  We didn't talk about what these people have to do to survive in our community, how difficult it is for their families to help them, or how the system has to balance the personal rights and safety of people with mental illness, with societal well-being.