Some lessons are learned early in life’s journey. Sometimes they arrive too late. Many appear by accident, unannounced.
Lessons in diplomacy, when they surface, need to be recognized. I’m afraid our current crop of politicians are foregoing opportunities to embrace diplomacy in favour of constructing barriers of policies and edicts they are unwilling to change.
We are all too familiar with conditions brought about by recent challenges, whether they were COVID, inflation, supply chains, invasions of other countries, tariffs or party leaderships.
It seems as if politicians are convinced they must dig their trenches and stick to them — and lo be the poor sap that changes his or her mind.
So where has diplomacy gone? Where has the wind blown that line about listening to the other guy and understanding where they are coming from and why they are touting something different from your comfort zone?
Allow me to relate two real-life lessons learned early:
Small urban school in Saskatchewan more than a couple of decades ago is now being “invaded” by a horde of “country kids” who are arriving in our schoolyard following the closure of two rural schools.
We weren’t prepared.
These people arrived by bus with lunch pails for noon and our school had no lunchroom. So they were assigned one room (ours) in which to sit and dine while we townies scurried home for the one-hour break.
Derrick, a fellow townie, was outright angry and verbal in his opposition to the room assignment.
“I wish they’d eat their lunch instead of leaving it on my desk,” he’d grumble, wiping up a few leftover crumbs.
But then, about a month into this uneasy arrangement, something happened. Noon-hour activities were introduced and, lo and behold, many townies began arriving with lunch boxes to get early starts on the action. We sat and ate in the same room and stared at the rural interlopers with suspicion until one day, the guy from the rurals sitting behind Derrick offered him half of his sandwich. Derrick grumbled, but accepted.
“Wow, that’s great bread, where’d you get it?” he proclaimed after two bites.
“Mom, homemade, she’s a good baker,” the country kid replied.
“Wow, she must be. This is good.”
“I’ll bring an extra one tomorrow,” the rural intruder suggested.
“She’d do that? You’d do that?”
“Sure.”
Derrick and the intruder became fast friends thanks to the dough and an unexpected connection, and the rest of us townies took a new positive interest in our now rural friends and what they could literally and figuratively bring to the table.
We handed out store-bought cookies and friendships we all needed.
Lesson two:
Same town. Again, a group of strangers arrive to disturb our tranquil existence.
Our community had been populated decades earlier by a curious combination of Ukrainian and Polish immigrants, along with a whole host of Icelanders and a smattering of English settlers just to make it more interesting. The community thrived and the townspeople had learned early how to get along.
But now, four interlopers from Hungary and East Germany arrived on our doorstep and they don’t even speak English that well and we have to welcome them? Come on! Just let me live my life the way I see it!
Well, it turned out these “foreign invaders” who had narrowly escaped harrowing situations in their home countries had arrived in our little town, seeking a new life.
Two were young 20-year-olds and one was a mid-30s guy with his wife Ria.
Joe and Al were bachelors and soon got jobs. Al as a cook in a restaurant attached to a service station on the edge of town, the other (Joe) joining Kess, the married guy, who had received investment money from a forward-thinking local farmer/sponsor and opened a bakery in a previously abandoned building on the far end of the main drag. His special breads and cakes became famous around the town and surrounding district. His bread equalled the wonderful homemade product Derrick had enjoyed a few years earlier.
The chef talent at the service station soon became evident and special Friday night meals at the attached restaurant gained recognition and momentum. Frank, the café owner, an earlier Hungarian refugee, and Al were classically trained in food prep. Joe, on the other hand, who had narrowly escaped from East Germany, was trained in another interesting way.
When word got out that one of the new guys who didn’t speak English “very good” (sic) was dynamite on the dance floor, especially when it came to waltzes, let’s just say my sister’s graduation dance took on a new vibration.
Joe and Al got invited and I almost dropped a tear or two as I watched my sister and her pals Patsy, Verna, Audrey, Diane and Lillian taking turns twirling around the dance floor with Joe to a Strauss waltz, with music supplied by a local eight-piece orchestra that read their sheets carefully and performed magically.
Naturally, disgruntled boyfriends stood on sidelines with frowns on faces and furrowed brows.
But then, it was time to jive. The disgruntled boyfriends suddenly became gruntled.
The girlfriends and boyfriends jumped and jived while Joe and Al looked on with bemused interest.
It was suggested by one of the girls that perhaps her boyfriend could help Joe and Al learn a few jive steps and flips.
Yep, you know how that ends. Lessons given, lessons learned. Lasting friendships forged in a matter of minutes because two potentially opposite factions were brought together with a little understanding and open minds.
Spoiler alert: one of those friends, Audrey, informed me recently that she attempted to teach Al a few jive moves, only to end up with a badly bruised ankle — but also a few good laughs.
The next school year, our limited physical education program, held in the basement of the school, was enhanced by an additional program: dance lessons. We could all learn how to dance to Strauss or Buddy Holly, and we even invited my uncle from Yorkton, a well-known square dance caller at that time, to pay a few visits to teach us how to do a little do-si-do, allemande lefts, promenades, and then how to circle on home on the cement dance floor.
Lessons learned, again? Well, sort of. Confession time: I really can’t waltz or polka, so apparently those dance lessons didn’t always sink in. But I can’t blame Joe or Uncle Earl.
But those experiences, those lessons about reaching beyond the comfort zones, did have a lasting subtle impact.
Perhaps some of our entrenched politicians and their strident supporters could take a few lessons in bread-baking, waltzing, jiving — and then do a few do-si-dos and circles through — and just open up to learning about others before performing their promenades to come on home.
