Sanguine Tenacious Tidings

Quess Who and Quess Why?

Share a time when an interaction with a stranger had an affect on you.

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When we start raising different inconsistent truths, life may tip into bewilderment and the brain may go haywire. The confrontation between what is, not is, and maybe is, might embed an enduring showdown, harboring an intense apprehension, and bring us sometimes unwittingly to our knees ("The hidden sides of his character" )”
― Erik Pevernagie :https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/confrontation


Almost all significant interactions with strangers have some affect on me. I am the kind of person that usually does not register an affect until later. Or the affect may go unnoticed, because it isn’t immense. I can just shake it off or scream about it hours, days, or years later. Hence my constant work on mindfulness.

I’ve had a lot of interaction with strangers. Most generally, people who come here may be strangers to me, but not necessarily strangers to K or relatives of K or my brother or some cousin's acquaintance. I’m often left wondering, who sent someone to my home without telling me? So, picking one incident or another isn’t special, because there are many.

Many years ago, I don’t really remember when this occurred. Sometime in the 1980’s maybe. I was unloading a small load of manure from cleaning horse stalls. An automobile came up the drive. An elderly man got out and approached. He was a thin and wiry type of person. Maybe he was not as elderly as I thought at first. Possibly late 50’s which today isn’t really elderly. I would have been in my 30’s. His clothes were worn work clothes. Not dungarees, a type of work pant worn in shops around the area. Dark tan with a matching shirt of the same color. Heavy work shoes as well. Not well kept up either. He said he came to talk to me about the boat I sold him. I didn’t sell him or anyone else a boat. I told him that, pretty much exactly as I stated it.

He knotted his hands at his sides into fists. His eyes were hard and nasty. And he argued. A simple argument. Yes. You did. No. I didn’t. This went back a forth between us a couple times with me staring straight into his eyes for emphasis. With each statement his agitation grew. He took a couple quick strides in my direction. I menacingly raised my pitch fork. He stopped, not really too close. About 6 feet between us. Then he just turned around got back in his vehicle and left.

At one time, I owned a boat, which I gave to one of K’s cousins, because it was not being used and the weather was depreciating it. I told K about the incident but, I never learned, who the man was or why he thought I sold him a boat. Because I never learned any more about the incident, it has become one of those unresolved memories that flies into my mind some times. The unanswered question. What was he intending to do to me? What would have happened if I had to use the pitch fork?

Not the last time I had to threaten a stranger with a pitch fork either. This was 10 or 15 years before home invasions started around this rural area. Also 15 or 20 years before the women of the area started getting license to carry permits. I have a small amount of these stranger stories stored in memory. I have several, but one is too many, I think. To me it makes me think as I age, that our country is more dangerous as the years move on? Also, younger people in the area, without a thought about aging are inclined to make fun of or threat the elderly as if we have no minds of our own. .