Dispatches from the road by Bill Poindexter

 Dispatches from the road, but Bill Poindexter

Jamaican Dave 

Hi, like you, have a favorite grocery store. And in my grocery store, there is a man in the meat department , and his name is Jamaican, Dave, well, it’s just Dave but he’s from Jamaica so he’s known as Jamaican Dave. I love that. He’s 54 years old, a black man , and one of the nicest people I ever met in my life. I see him periodically, and we always have a nice chat, and he knows I don’t make a lot of money so he’ll occasionally tell me that just pick up whatever kind of meat you want and bring it over to me and I’ll give you a good discount. Humanity is alive and well. So tonight I went into the grocery store and I hadn’t been there for a while. He asked me -where I’ve been, but then said something about that since I ride my bicycle to the store that maybe it’s just been too cold. He was right. And I decided to take a break from the bicycle for the last couple of weeks for a couple of reasons one is it’s been very cold, snowy, icy. Lots of snow and ice on the ground and I just needed a break. Secondly, I’ve been riding my bicycle every day to work or for errands, for the last two years I would say probably every day. Anywhere from 10 to 30 miles a day. And my body just need a little break. I’ve had an injury that I got when I was working at Trader Joe’s last year on my left quadricep, but still hasn’t healed. At least not fully. So it’s good. It was good to take care of the weeks off. And do a little walking instead. Although I don’t think the walking helped it much. Anyway, Jamaican Dave and I had a good conversation day for about 10 minutes, we talked about me, riding my bicycle for transportation, and how he loved, riding his bicycle for exercise in the warmer weather. And we talked about people and humanity and somehow the conversation came around, traveling to different places and meeting people and that honestly most people are the same they’re good people they just want the same things, food, shelter, clothing, education for their kids, good health and a decent job with a decent wage. And that even with all the weirdness in the world, he still watches TV because he likes watching sports and if he watches the news, he discerns that there is news that is right and there’s news that is wrong and he’s able to through common sense figure out which is which. Very optimistic man in a world gone awry. I guess it comes down to the fact that no matter how crazy the world seems but there’s a lot of good people out there. And that is something to be celebrated. Thanks Jamaican Dave for your insight. I needed it.