Out of Touch...

My family went over to my Mom's house this past Sunday in the late afternoon to celebrate my son's and my nephew's birthday. We had a great time. During the festivities, I asked my Mom if we could have some coffee, and she said there was already some made in the coffee maker. I went over to get a hot cup and found it resting comfortably at room temperature. In the vernacular, cold.

It was the morning coffee.

My mom said with great love, and just a slight smack condescending, "Oh, just put it in the microwave." I looked at her like a little boy might look at their mom if she had asked him to change his little sister's poopy diaper. Just for the record, I got a "Boy, you better heat that coffee up in the microwave" look from my wife too.

I'm going to admit it up front. I forget what it's like to be poor most of the time. I do have a recollection of it now and again. Because of that, poverty doesn't frighten me.

I would have thought nothing of re-heating coffee many years ago. In fact, I would have probably thought "how terribly frugal and wonderful my mother is to have thought of such a thing as to re-heat coffee. That is a great idea, because we don't want to waste it." No. I'm sure I would have thought something like that.

I've been thinking about that little family moment for three days. I don't want to forget it, because it is so easy to get out of touch. Affluence will do that, and rather quickly.

Tonight in Tulsa, there are people living in and around the neighborhoods where the Honorable Mayor resides and other affluent areas, scratching their heads and wondering: "Exactly how did this wonderful idea of improving the river get away from us?"

I'll share with you a couple of my thoughts.

If you drive a Chevy or ride the bus, you know precisely how bad the roads are. Conversely, the roads are not nearly so bad from behind the wheel of a Lexus.

If you scratch around for school clothes at Wal-Mart every year, you don't worry too much if their will be a Gap or a Abercrombie & Fitch at the River in a couple of years.

If you live around 61st & Peoria, you worry about dodging bullets, and if the local gang member is trying to pimp your teenage daughter - all under the overworked eye of our understaffed police department. Not so much if you have a state-of-the-art security system installed in your gated compound.

If you've ever had to send your child to Cleveland Middle School, or Gilcrease, or Monroe, or McClain, or any of their really crappy feeder schools, you might not worry too much about whether some YP will be able to kayak through the man-made fjords of the new and improved Arkansas River, built, by the way, especially for YP's.

Many people who don't have large disposable incomes, feel every 4/10ths of a penny extra. They want their contributions from sales taxes to go for things that will make their day-to-day lives better.

These are regular people who will re-heat their morning coffee, and hide it in the Starbucks coffee mug they got as a gift from their spouse at Christmas.

I pray I can always remember about what regular people need. We can help each other a great deal by making sure our infrastructure is top-notch. Roads, Water, Sewer, Public Safety, Schools, parks and the like.