Fred Coon

When I taught school in West Virginia, I made next to nothing so I took a summer job with the Department of Social Services. My job was to drive around the mountains of Logan County and visit people in their homes with the purpose of determining if they were really eligible to continue on the State welfare roles.

It was very difficult for me to go into some of those homes and see the poverty and not be compelled to check them off immediately as "qualified" instead of checking "not qualified".

Most were and some were not. Same in life with people who are honest and those that are not. Making these decisions taught me a lot about myself and others.

Meeting the tremendous variety of people in a wide variety of circumstances, different than mine (although we all shared the commonality of being broke and having no money) convinced me that there is a common thread among all of us.

That common thread is that a person's circumstances, at that given point in their life, neither makes them good or bad. It just makes them who they are. The trick then, as it is now, is to try to discover who they were/are and work from that point.

From this experience, I learned that most people, if you treat them with respect, will do the same in return and that most people can be kind and generous, even though they don't have much themselves.

I wouldn't trade that summer for anything....