Seven hours later, I stopped by Wegman's on the way home to pick up some groceries. The family-owned grocery store chain had just been featured in the National Catholic Register as a company committed to Catholic Social Teaching in their practice, training, hiring, and treatment of employees--a business model that respects human capital and the dignity of the person, as well as a commitment to family values. I loaded up a few heavy laden bags in the car and headed home.
As I pulled up, there was a tall African American man standing in my neighbor's driveway. The dog had gotten out and I stopped to catch him and bring him back to my neighbor. After I did, the man made his way over to me as I pulled in. I was tired, hungry, and not really sure what his business was, but we shook hands and he cordially recited his rehearsed speech.
He was selling magazine subscriptions. He was looking for a second chance in life, a way to support his five children. He was from Alabama, but staying temporarily in Wilmington. I have no idea what he was doing up this way, but it couldn't have been an easy gig--walking door to door in the rain, pitching magazine subscriptions to white upper-middle class families like myself. His name was Dave. "Big Dave," I said to him, as I pointed to his jacket that had "BIG DAVE" airbrushed on it. He was tall, maybe 6'3" and had a sheepish but determined way about him. He received a commission from each magazine sale, a door to door salesman for the publishing companies which have seen better days. I have no idea what this business model was all about, it seemed kind of shady, but I tried to feel him out as best I could. It could have been a scam, and probably was, but the man himself had a sad kind of way about him.
We talked a little in the drizzle, at the end of my driveway. "Can I ask you? What was your first job?" A paper route, I told him. "And what was the hardest thing about it?" Getting up at 4am I told him, rain or shine. "That sounds about right," he said, "the hardest thing for me is facing the stereotypes when they see someone like me come up to their door, and getting a second chance." I asked about his past. His mother had passed when he was 12, got into drugs, jail. He was about my age.
Talking to Big Dave was very humbling; not because of his story, but because of my reaction to his very presence in my neighborhood. What was he doing here? No, I don't really want to buy any magazine subscriptions? I just want to get my bags of chicken and eggs and milk and bananas in my dry four bedroom house and spend some time with my wife and children and maybe have a beer or two and then fall asleep in my queen sized bed. The privilege was stark and glaring.
But here we were, two men from very different backgrounds, both with children, trying to do right by our families and earn a living, talking in the rain. But of the two of us, I think it's safe to say I had it a little easier. We were equal in our human, God-given dignity, but not equal in our social strata. He wasn't looking for charity; he wanted to work, a second chance. He knew he was up against a lot. His brochure of children's magazines and the subscription details was wet and torn and sad as I leafed through it. I bought $64 worth of magazines and as we don't really read magazines at home, he said I could donate them to children who do. We shook hands, and he walked off in the mist. I forgot to offer him something to eat on his way, a banana, something, and the words of Jesus haunted me "When I was hungry, you did not give me to eat..."
As I hauled the groceries into the house to get dinner ready and my kids greeted me in the family room. There really is no reason at all in the world to be ungrateful, ever. Dave was like a mirror walking door to door, holding up our reflections. I was grateful for that too, whether it was an indictment to repent of, or a moment of shared humanity as men. Just earlier in the day at David's karate practice some of the women were talking about their husband's jobs as CFOs of major companies, etc, and I just felt kind of...inadequate. But meeting Dave, a grown man selling magazines door to door, made me realize no good comes from comparisons.
There is a God-given dignity in work, no matter how high up or how lowly. For men, it is so important, so tied up with our sense of self and responsibility, our ability to hold our heads up and say, 'we are trying.'
Thank you, Lord, for the gift of work, and thank you for sending Big Dave to my house to remind me what it looks like. As Dorothy Day said, "you never know when you might be entertaining an angel."
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