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I once held a party at my house where one of the guests was a social anthropologist. I fussed the whole evening—wondering if he was examining our home and drawing unflattering conclusions about our values based on the visible artifacts.

“Hmm . . . look at the size of that refrigerator. Hmm . . . more CDs than books.”

I bet there are a couple of things about my home that he’d have a hard time understanding. For example, the potted plants leading up to our front door are shabby, disheveled, and imbalanced, whereas the carpets inside are so clean you could perform surgery on them. Why is that?

How my plants got so raggedy and my carpets so clean is the subject of today’s Kerrying On. It all started some twenty years ago while I was observing an executive give a speech. It was a tough time in the company and she was explaining in an all-hands meeting why they were cutting back on the budget. She argued that everyone was going to have to sacrifice. Everyone was going to have to tighten their belts. You know the drill.

When the executive eventually called for questions, there was a long pause. Finally, a fellow standing in the back raised his hand. His comments shook the room. “If money is so tight,” the fellow remarked, “then why are you building a second office across town for yourself? And I hear that it’s costing tens of thousands of dollars. How can you justify that?”

This was one of those fearful and awkward moments we’ve all experienced. Everyone quickly sucked in their breath as they waited for the executive to blow a gasket and then humiliate the person who asked the question. After all, the guy had just called the big boss a hypocrite in front of the whole company. Surely he would now pay. And sure enough, the boss did turn a shade of dark red while the muscles in her face tightened.

But then the executive seemed to catch herself. She took a deep breath, relaxed, smiled and thanked the person for the question. She explained what was going on and why, said she was unaware of the actual budget, but if it was indeed that high she would make sure that it wasn’t in excess. This conversation continued until everyone seemed satisfied with what was going on and the meeting ended on a positive note.

As we walked back to her office, I asked the executive how she was able to keep from losing her temper. She explained that at first she was upset. The question did come across as a cheap-shot. But then she said something that I’ve never forgotten. She explained, “As I was becoming angry, I asked myself what I really wanted. Did I want to humiliate this guy in front of the crowd? My emotions cried for this, but it’s not what I really wanted. I really wanted everyone to buy into the notion that times were indeed tough and that we needed to be financially responsible. If there were rumors floating around that had to be answered before people would believe the message, then I needed to hear them. The truth is, I needed him to ask the very question he asked. So I thanked him and I meant it. It was the best thing that could have happened.”

When you’re in the middle of an argument or heated discussion, “What do I really want?” turns out to be one of the most important questions you can ask yourself. As your emotions kick in you might just move from wanting to make the best choice to wanting something else altogether. Is humiliating the other person or winning the argument at any cost really your desire? Are you going to let your most immature and perverse wishes set your priorities for you? Or are you going to be mature enough to return to your original and healthy goals? Because if you still want to make the best choice, then maybe fighting for the second or third best option just so you can win isn’t the smartest strategy. And causing the other person pain—that should never be on your to-do list.

With this lesson in mind, let’s return to my home and see if we can help the social anthropologist understand how my flowers got so tattered while the carpet became so clean. Is this disparity evidence that I’m an obsessive compulsive with traces of schizophrenia? Or is something else going on?

Here’s the answer. When my mother passed away three years ago, Dad moved in with us. He’s a wonderful fellow, always upbeat and always trying to help out despite the fact that he’s eighty-seven and mostly deaf and blind. That first spring, just after he moved in, I started to fill the various flower pots and planters out front with the perennials I’d purchased. Dad shuffled up next to me, gloves in hand and ready to help.

It turned out to be a tough job—including him that is. He can’t really see, so when I asked him to water after I put the plants in the soil, he frequently harmed the delicate flowers. Either he knocked off the blooms with the hose or he flushed away the soil with too much water pressure. He then hinted that watering the plants would now be his daily job. When I suggested that I could do it, he looked disappointed and said that he really wanted to pitch in.

It’s not easy growing old. Giving away your life’s possessions as you move from house to apartment to a single room can’t be fun. Watching your body give out one part at a time must be frightening. And now, as he stood there with hose nozzle in hand, Dad wanted to hold onto being a productive member of society. He wanted a job. He wanted to contribute. He wanted to help.

At first I told him not to worry about watering, I’d do it. I’d spent hundreds of dollars on bedding plants and took pride in my flower beds and pots. He’d just ruin them. Every summer people would come to the front door and the first words out of their mouths would be a compliment about our lovely flowers. My wife and oldest son watched what was going on and each sidled up next to me and suggested that I couldn’t let Dad help with the flowers. It would be a disaster.

As I talked with Dad, he continued to plead his case. He’d be really careful and watering would give him something to do. We had been struggling with how to fill his days.

And then it hit me—the words of the executive echoed in my head. What did I really want? Obviously I wanted Dad to be happy. But then again, I wanted the plants to look good. Maybe I could find another job for him—one that wouldn’t involve killing my flowers; but I couldn’t find anything. After all, he’s mostly deaf and blind. So I decided right then and there: Dad would water. He mattered the most. I wanted him to be happy. That’s what I really wanted.

The carpets soon fell into his domain as well. As summer turned to fall and Dad moved from outside to inside, he took over the vacuuming chores. Nobody is more meticulous than he. He goes over each carpet segment from five different directions. A job that would normally take thirty minutes now takes three hours. First he sucks up the dirt. Then, for the next two and a half hours he sucks up the color. I think he may even be altering electrons in their paths. One day our living room may go nuclear.

Of course, having the vacuum scream for hours on end drives us nuts. Nowadays we schedule ourselves to be out of the house whenever Dad vacuums. Once again, we could have told him no, but when we asked what we really wanted, Dad won the vacuuming job.

My guess is that the cultural anthropologist wouldn’t be able to explain why our plants look so bad while the carpets look so good. He’d have to know two important facts: One, when caught in an argument of competing priorities, I’ve learned to step back from the fray and ask what I really want. Two, I love my dad. The combined effect of these two seemingly unrelated facts is actually quite wonderful.

Dad is flourishing and that’s all that really matters.

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Today’s thought comes by way of my neighbor, Dr. Alan Christensen, a professor of Maya history and language. For those of you who don’t have the benefit of living close to someone who knows more about the Maya than most of us know about our own home towns, let me share a fact or two. The Maya are the indigenous people currently living in Mesoamerica. Over six million of them make their homes in a region that runs from the Yucatan peninsula down through Central America. Around four thousand years ago the Maya developed astronomy, a calendrical system, and hieroglyphic writing. In fact, they developed one of only five phonetic writing systems known to the world. During their golden age, the Maya were more advanced than almost all of the civilizations of their time.

The story that caught my attention goes back a few years to when Alan was helping create a Maya dictionary. One evening as he closed up his work in the mountains of Guatemala, he realized that he needed to descend to his base camp before it grew too dark. He would be hiking through a dangerous jungle known for, among other things, packs of wild dogs.

As Alan hurried along an animal trail he stumbled upon a tiny Maya village. It consisted of a few huts surrounding a central courtyard. In front of one of the huts stood a bench, and sitting on the bench were the village elders. Rather than ask for directions (his pressing issue), Alan gracefully started the conversation with what is known as the Maya introduction ritual. With the Maya you can’t merely walk up to someone and ask, “What’s happening dude?” Instead, you must introduce yourself and all of your known ancestors along with what they did during their lives! After over an hour of ancestor talk, Alan finally was able to ask for directions down the mountain. By now it had grown so dark that he was quite worried about the wild dogs. The locals assured him that his journey would be safe. One of them would accompany him to his destination.

Before Alan could continue his hike down the mountain, one of the villagers asked him what had taken him up the mountain in the first place. Dr. Christensen explained that he had been compiling a dictionary of their language. His answer took them by surprise. They had known that the Spanish language could be written, but it had never occurred to them that their own language could ever be captured on stone or paper. Alan assured them that not only could it be, but that their language had been written centuries earlier but lost. In fact, the land around them was replete with ancient temples that contained a great deal of early Maya writing.

“What did our ancestors have to say to us?” one of the elders asked. Alan just happened to be carrying the translation of one of the more famous passages (to archeologists, not to the Maya), so he pulled it out and read it to them. The villagers sat in silence, eagerly listening. Tears ran down their cheeks as they heard for the first time the wisdom of their much-honored predecessors. “Are there other words? Where can we find all of what they had to say to us?”

As Alan explained that scholars were working on translating other writings, one of the elders asked, “Could I speak aloud to you and then you write down my words—for my children?” “Yes,” the others chimed in, “Could you write our words?”

Alan didn’t make it down the mountain that evening. Instead, he played the role of scribe as eager fathers composed words of wisdom to their offspring. Finally, the chief invited him into his hut where he privately composed a document for his only son. He had already lost seven children, and now his only remaining son had been struck with tuberculosis. He wanted to write a message to him before he was inevitably taken by the disease. He poured his heart out as Alan sat and wrote.

As I listened to Dr. Christensen tell this story I was intrigued to learn that upon first hearing of their long-lost language, the villagers wanted to hear the words of their ancestors—to learn from the wisdom of the ages. Then they became consumed with the ideas of writing down their thoughts to benefit their own children.

How different we are from these Maya villagers. For the Maya, who saw and heard the written word for the first time, the value of the written word was incalculable. To those of us who live in a veritable sea of text, the marginal utility of the next written word approaches zero. Our indifference is understandable. Since a codified system can be applied to any and all words, including a list of ingredients on the side of a box of Cocoa Puffs, most of us have developed methods to insulate ourselves from the unrelenting deluge of minutia, sales pitches, and unsolicited advice that streams before us each day.

As a natural consequence of nearly drowning in words, most of us don’t write much—well, certainly not much of any substance. Unlike the Maya elders who, after knowing of their written language for only a few minutes, had already composed heart-felt notes of love and advice to their children, we haven’t done the same with our own offspring despite the fact that we have known how to write for decades. Somewhere between penning our first “I love you Mommy,” and writing a term paper on the digestive system of the worm, we stopped writing for pleasure.

Writing simply isn’t our medium of choice any more. As leaders we certainly don’t write serious thought pieces or calls to action, and as parents we rarely write words of adoration or instruction. Today we compose e-mails and text messages—often unpunctuated and almost always brief. The coin of today’s verbal realm is idle chit chat, acronyms (LOL), and abbreviated business-speak.

To put this change in communication style into perspective, consider the following: Thomas Jefferson wrote over 20,000 letters during his career. Of course, if I wrote with the majesty and eloquence of Thomas Jefferson, I’d write more letters too. But it’s not merely a matter of ability. Most of us no longer desire to write. We choose not to. Maybe we’re reluctant to express ourselves in writing because our first attempts to capture our thoughts and dreams typically fell under the chilling gaze of grammarians who accused us of dangling our modifiers and splitting our infinitives when all we really wanted to do was tell a story and have someone read it.

So today we rely on other media. At work, we write precious little of any real substance. Instead we hold meetings. Talking is fast, cheap, and interactive. Talking requires no style guide, spell check, or grammar review. And let’s not forget the really big benefit of oral argument: If you don’t put anything in writing, you aren’t committing to something that people can rub your nose in later. Nobody ever made a photocopy of something stupid you said in a meeting and circulated it around the company.

And yet, writing remains a powerful tool for influence. I once worked on a massive corporate change project where I wrote a weekly e-mail to all of the leaders. In the document I described what we had done that week and why. I shared theory and philosophy. I honestly described both successes and failures. I even expressed my concerns and feelings. Often the document was a full two pages long.

At first I worried that the weekly two-pager was out of step with the corporate culture, but soon learned that the documents were becoming the voice of the change project. People would stop me in the hallway and ask questions or make comments. The letter drew people together in a way that I hadn’t imagined. Water-cooler talk transformed from light-weight sports analysis and petty gripes to thoughtful discussions of where the leaders were trying to take the company and what it would require to get there. An atmosphere of concern and criticism slowly shifted to one of guarded optimism. The ailing company was on the mend and everyone was playing a role in the healing. And strangely enough, the weekly letter played an important role in propelling the change.

And how about parents? Should they make more use of the written word? When my oldest daughter took a job in Ecuador, I wrote her a weekly letter where I expressed my love and concern for her along with daily chit chat and updates on sports and current events. These were the first letters I had composed since 1966, when I was living in Brazil and wrote to my own parents. I hadn’t written a letter for over thirty years because the phone had replaced my pen. However, since the cost of even a brief phone call to Ecuador was the equivalent of a steak dinner, I returned to writing letters. Since writing down my thoughts seemed more formal and important to me than merely chatting, I made an effort to express deeper and more meaningful ideas than I would have left to my natural proclivities. My daughter still has all of those letters.

I’m reminded of the movie The Great Santini. When the Santini’s oldest son turns sixteen, his mother writes him a letter and places it in his lunch bag. In it she expresses her love and appreciation for the man he has become. It’s a beautiful piece of writing and I’ve often thought of that scene, wondering how many of us have the courage to do the same. Will we take the time to write our thoughts on paper, where they are recorded forever and can be easily recalled years, even centuries, later? Probably not. Either we don’t think to write down our thoughts or we’re afraid of placing them in public view.

But like it or not, fear it or not, the written word still can play an important role in our lives. The day will come when we’re gone and the only thing left of us will be hundreds of still photographs that place us in front of tourist attractions, a handful of short video clips where we ritually mouth, “Get that camera out of my face!” and lastly, perhaps most importantly, our written words. The Maya understood the value of the written word the minute they learned that they could write their thoughts to their own children. And now, through their eyes, I’m coming to the same understanding.

Dear Crucial Skills,
I manage a large staff of around seventy nurses. How do I begin to change the culture from no accountability to full accountability?

We are not speaking of the patient care aspects—the staff is outstanding in this area. I’m concerned about everything else: keeping the desk area free of clutter, returning mandatory education or memos on time, noting when some problem in the unit needs attention and either ignoring it or coming to me to “fix” everything, etc. I am getting worn out and need some help with this aspect.

Thank you,
Exhausted

Dear Exhausted,
You are not alone! Thousands of managers and employees feel exactly the same way. Helping people deal with accountability is one of the main reasons we wrote Crucial Confrontations. Whether you work with seventy nurses or just one other person in a toll booth, you will have issues with accountability. Why? People are people and circumstances are complex. At some time, you will face a broken promise, a violated expectation, or bad behavior.

Before I answer your specific question, let me congratulate you. The core work—in your case, patient care—is going well. Other things are slipping—punctuality, paperwork, and work environment—but your challenge is not as severe as what many face (things like issues with quality or productivity where organizational survival is in question).

So to address your situation, I’ll focus first on what might be called the “non-core” gaps. A gap is the difference between what is expected and what is delivered. At the heart of your frustration and exhaustion, I imagine, is that you have been very clear about what is expected. What a clutter-free desk looks like has been clarified. Why it’s important has been articulated to the point of feeling like nagging. The same is true of the paperwork and due dates. But there is little compliance or performance. Then comes this loud, persistent, intense voice in your head that clamors, “Why can’t these people do something as simple as getting rid of the clutter? It’s clutter for heaven’s sake, not asbestos!” Sometimes this voice is so powerful that it slips out between your very own lips. For many people, this cycle occurs at home with such issues as a clean room, curfew, and toilet seats.

Given that, let me make a few suggestions.

1. Make sure that the expectation is clear and explain up front why it is important. Often, managers or parents tell others what is expected but they don’t take a minute to help them understand why it is important or essential. Unfortunately, the implied message is, “Because I said so!” or “Because I want it.” That’s not particularly motivating or empowering. Help the other person know what the positive consequences will be if he or she follows through, and what the natural negative consequences will be if he or she doesn’t. When you talk about potential negative consequences, what you want to do is help employees see how patients or families or colleagues or even the employees themselves will be affected. What you don’t want to do is talk about imposed consequences like “writing them up.” A few moments of helping others see the “what” and the “why” can help performance.
2. When assignments are given, even about something as simple as keeping a clear desk, make sure you are clear about who does what by when, and follow up. Often one of these aspects is not clear. Who will keep the desk uncluttered, what uncluttered looks like, when it should be done, and when you will check back should be very clear. If you leave one of these details out, the commitment or assignment is less effective.
3. Don’t oversimplify. Treat the issue like an ability issue rather that a motivation issue. If we assume that people don’t want to do something, we often try to motivate them with power and subtle or not-so-subtle threats. Even that raised eyebrow can carry many messages. If we treat the gap like an ability issue, we ask for ideas. People close to the problem, the process, and the opportunities very often have good ideas. So ask, “What could be done to make this easier?” If others have a good, workable idea, they are more likely to follow through on it. Also, they may suggest some bottlenecks, barriers, or complexities that you are unaware of. The outcome is that you have a better solution with increased commitment.
4. Look at the example that you and other leaders are setting. For example, consider the following situation in a home setting. A mother is consistently demanding that her daughter clean her room and her bathroom. Mom takes away television privileges until the room is clean. She grounds her daughter for the weekend until the room is clean. The daughter, in talking with her friends, wonders if her mother thinks she’s blind. Why, asks the daughter, doesn’t Mom have to clean her sink, her closet, or her bedroom? This seems like an obvious problem. And yet sometimes managers and leaders have a hard time seeing the example they are setting on issues like clutter, punctuality, paperwork, civility, communication, and even controlling costs. When accountability suffers, look to the leaders, including self.

In summary, when gaps persist, clarify what’s expected and why; make sure there’s agreement on who does what by when and follow up; ask for ideas; and look at the example that is being set.

Best wishes,
Al

Dear Crucial Skills,

My husband travels for business quite often. Recently, he left for a conference a few days prior to the actual event. I know for a fact he was not there to entertain clients ahead of time. He called me during the conference asking if I could transfer money into his account because he spent all his budget money at the bar. This has been a recurring issue with his spending, and I think he needs to change jobs. I’m tired of being responsible for paying the bills and buying the groceries out of my budget money while he is out with his friends. How do I approach this with him?

Signed,
Over Budget

Dear Over Budget,
Whatever you do, do not try to solve this problem by taking control. If you do, you will enable the very behavior you are trying to influence.

Most of us so loathe having crucial confrontations that we’ll do anything possible to avoid them. Some of us just withdraw and complain. Others take control. For example, attempting to force solutions on others that we think will resolve the root cause of the concern.

In your case, you sound tempted to influence your husband to quit his job. While his job may be contributing to his budget excesses, if you take responsibility for forcing that solution on him, he is likely to reject your advice and take even less ownership for the real issue.

The real issue here is that he is violating his agreements with you. It is not that he is spending a lot of personal money on business trips. You must be clear on that distinction; otherwise, when you raise the concern he will be likely to focus on spending patterns between the two of you.

So my first piece of advice is to focus on the right issue: You have lost trust in your husband’s willingness to keep his agreements with you.

Second, make sure you don’t undermine your ability to have this conversation by acting it out rather than talking it out. Avoid the temptation to check up on him, control the bank account, make sarcastic comments, or withdraw approval or affection in order to compel him to comply with your desires. In the public realm we say that your success in a crucial confrontation is predicted by how safe you can make the other person feel. At home I’ll be even more direct–your success in this crucial confrontation will depend on your ability to influence him through an undiluted mixture of absolute love and absolute honesty.

Making it safe is not just about skills used in the conversation. You could think about the skills we teach for conversational safety as tools for maintaining situational respect. These skills ensure that while you’re talking to your husband, he knows that you care about his needs and problems and also that you respect and love him.

Another part of safety is relational safety–this is the safety, affection, and respect that he feels from you on an ongoing basis. You will have no more influence with him than you have ongoing safety in your relationship. So be sure you are regularly maintaining the warmth and affection in your relationship.

Having done that as best you can, you must now be completely honest with him about (a) your desire to have a wonderful marriage with him, and (b) your unwillingness to have a relationship where someone is dishonorable in his agreements.

If you open the conversation with safety–that is, a demonstrated commitment to having a terrific relationship–you will be much more likely to then have a searching discussion about why he is breaking his agreements. Explore all the reasons he is doing this. Jointly develop solutions–which may include changing his work situation–to help him keep his agreements. But ensure that he is responsible for helping develop these solutions, not that you are compelling him to agree with them.

If you focus on the right conversation, keep the relationship strong, create safety in the conversation, and explore the many possible reasons for the problem, you are likely to have a positive outcome.

If you’ll allow a final philosophical comment–I firmly believe that none of us achieve our potential as human beings except through relationships where others love us enough to challenge us to improve ourselves. So, the conversation you’re preparing to have is not evidence of a bad relationship; it’s evidence that you’re attempting to achieve what your very relationship is for.

Best wishes,
Joseph

The following article was first published on June 1, 2005.

Dear Crucial Skills,

What if you are not dealing with a reasonable, rational, and decent person? Is this possible or do you genuinely believe that each person with whom we interact fits this description?

I look forward to your comments.

All the best,
Skeptical

Dear Skeptical,

The “fundamental attribution error” is the automatic assumption we often make that the other person’s motives are bad. This can happen when someone says or does something we think is harmful or threatening. We immediately attribute bad motive–we tell a villain story: “they are evil or selfish; they do bad things because they enjoy it.”

To keep from making the fundamental attribution error, we recommend challenging your story with questions. One such question is “Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person act this way?”

Posing the question is NOT making an assumption that all people are reasonable, rational, and decent; rather, posing the question IS an effort to consider other possibilities. This question helps us explore other assumptions and not automatically assume that the worst story we can come up with is the only one we should consider. When we replace our certainty that the other person is bad and wrong with the recognition that we don’t know why the person did what he or she did, our emotion changes from anger and frustration to curiosity and maybe even concern.

Now, instead of being pushed by our anger into silence or violence, we’re much more likely, in a condition of curiosity, to ask questions and engage in dialogue. As we talk over the problem and gather more information, we’re in a better position to ascertain the other person’s motive and intent.

If we find out that our initial impulse was mistaken (the other person’s motives are not hurtful), we’re in a good position to solve problems together. However, if we discover that their motives are hurtful toward us—perhaps they’re political or personal—instead of being trapped in a fight-or-flight reflex with our brain turned off by hot emotion, our mind is active and engaged and we’re in a better position to decide what to do about this potential enemy. All options ranging from ending the relationship and disengaging to escalating the problem up the chain of command are available to us.

Mastering your stories is NOT a positive mental attitude technique that assumes that everyone’s motives are good. It IS a set of skills that keep us from assuming that all people’s motives are bad and hurtful. All in all, this increases the probability of us getting what we really want.

Best Wishes,
Ron

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In thinking about Valentine’s Day gifts, I’m reminded of a lesson I learned a few years ago. This particular lesson didn’t come at Cupid’s prompting, but it was heartfelt, and served as an important reminder about the gifts of love that count the most.

Almost three years ago I attended my forty-year high school reunion in Bellingham, Washington. Since my parents and I moved to Arizona right after I graduated, I’d only been back to my childhood stomping grounds twice during the previous four decades. Consequently, what for most of my classmates was a run-of-the-mill reunion took on epic proportions to me. It would be a chance to learn what all of those wonderful kids I had grown up with ended up doing with their lives.

Now, when most people attend a reunion, they want to show off. You know, brag a little, puff up their career a little, maybe even make their kids sound normal. But this was our forty-year reunion, so that ship had sailed. Avoiding humiliation seemed a more reasonable goal. Besides, in light of my long absence, I flew back to Puget Sound with a still different purpose in mind. I wanted to thank all the kids who had been such good friends. I wanted to thank Ed Biery for driving me around when he could drive and I couldn’t. So I did. I wanted to thank Curt Gurner for sticking up for me one day in the seventh grade when a ninth-grade bully was pushing me around and Curt “intervened” in my behalf. I thanked him profusely.

I also wanted to tell the wives of several of my close buddies a few of the fond memories I had of their spouses—stories they probably hadn’t heard. For instance, I met Lex Kalagis’s wife and told her of the time Lex ran for Fairhaven Junior High School President against the most popular kid in school. The kid who everyone expected to win walking away gave a humdrum speech full of hollow promises, after which everyone vigorously applauded his popularity. Then Lex stood up and quietly announced that he was there to represent the average kid. He was the people’s candidate. Lex started slowly and built to a crescendo of pumping fists and shouted anthems. As one, the student body arose and applauded their candidate. I still remember the look on the popular kid’s face as he was knocked down by a wave of proletariat payback. Lex won in a landslide. His wife loved the story.

I told Jim Zuanich’s wife of how one day he ran naked as a jaybird through a couple of dozen campsites back to our tent because Craig Hayes and I had mischievously taken his clothes from the public shower. Jim didn’t get angry. In fact, he had laughed heartily as he ran through the rough, in the buff. He wasn’t just a friend; he was the best kind of friend. He cheerfully put up with the immaturity with which we boys were so amply endowed.

For three hours I pushed my way through the crowd—reconnecting, thanking, and telling stories. But something was missing. As the night progressed, I kept asking everyone I ran into about the classmate who I was certain would have lived the most interesting life. I’ll call her Mary. I met her for the first time in the seventh grade. In the fall of 1958, several very different grade school classes had merged into one seventh-grade class. Mary had come from a school where the kids were way more intellectually advanced than the pathetically ignorant alumni of Larrabee Elementary, my school. Mary and her former classmates were into algebra and Latin. My classmates and I were fascinated by small shiny objects.

As luck would have it, Mary sat behind me in our seventh-grade homeroom class and for reasons I’ll never understand, stole my heart. Naturally, I was from the wrong side of the tracks. My dad worked for a few dimes over minimum wage; hers was a prominent lawyer. Our house had an ugly hole in the side yard where my brother and I had started to dig a pool but, of course, we never had the money to build one. Her three-story mansion had a tennis court next to an atrium. I had never heard the word atrium.

Every school day during our homeroom class I would turn around and stare into Mary’s deep brown eyes. Not constantly, of course, just enough to be creepy. She was too refined to be rude to me. I’m relatively certain that she felt sorry for me or was possibly even a little repulsed, but she never failed to be genuinely kind. I was a nervous little twit and not everyone found it in their heart to treat me with the dignity that Mary always showed me.

Mary was also a model student. Starting that first day of junior high school and for the next six years she meticulously prepared herself to head east to one of those big-named colleges I had only heard about in movies. For six years she earned top scores in her classes. I, in contrast, played around until the week before college commenced when I hastily applied to a junior college in Idaho. She went to one of the “Seven Sisters.”

Perhaps the most profound difference between the two of us lay in our social conscience. Mary was a model citizen. You could routinely find her in the hallways showing a new student around or talking to a lonely kid or rolling bandages. I, on the other hand, mostly leaned up against the hallway wall, bit off the ends of a black licorice whip (turning it into a pea-shooter), and shot small pieces of chewed-off licorice onto the angora sweaters of any girl who made the mistake of walking within range.

In short, Mary was rich, smart, and kind. I was poor, dim-witted, and . . . well, I was a teenage boy. And yet, despite being separated by a social chasm of monumental proportions, Mary was always nice to me. In return, I gave her the very best I had to offer. I never fired a wad of licorice at her.

But nobody at the reunion could tell me where Mary was, or what had happened to her. I found this hard to believe. Of course I wouldn’t know about Mary; I had been gone for forty years. But the people who had never left town didn’t know anything either. How could the most conspicuous person in our class, from the most prominent family in town, have disappeared? Consequently, when I stepped up to the display of photos of the classmates of ’64 who had already died, I was sure I’d find Mary’s picture.

No, Mary’s picture wasn’t posted along with the thirty-eight graduation photos of the deceased. Three had been killed in Vietnam, two had tragically taken their own lives, and the rest had fallen prey to natural causes.

Learning for the first time which of my childhood buddies had died by staring at their bright-eyed high-school photos struck my psyche a mighty blow. And just when I thought I couldn’t feel any lower, the loud-mouth emcee who had sporadically been making announcements about cars with their lights on sprinkled with bald jokes and the occasional Viagra reference stood up and explained that we would now pause for a moment of silence to honor those who had passed on. And then, as if we were all players in a Fellini movie, a kilted bagpiper marched into the center of the hall and played “Amazing Grace.” Now I was really feeling morose.

I was in this state, at the very bottom of my emotional spectrum, when a classmate finally offered up a scrap of information about sweet Mary. He had run into her in the local bookstore some twenty years earlier. She had been dressed in tattered hippy attire (this would have been a full decade after the movement), carrying a tiny baby in a sling. And then he kicked me in the gut with the news that Mary and child had hitchhiked across the country. I had to sit down as I tortured over the image of her, babe in arms, hitchhiking across the country. What had happened to her?

I know, it’s easy to come back with, “Hey, just because Mary didn’t end up the President or a corporate lawyer is no reason to be alarmed.” But a thirty-eight-year-old woman had hitchhiked 3,000 miles with a tiny baby. How could this tale ever be given a healthy spin? And it only grew worse. I learned from the very last person I talked to at the reunion that Mary was now living across the country in a one-room shack with no electricity. Mary. Sweet, kind, hope-of-America Mary.

My mind swirled as I tried to process the image of the finest girl I had known staring numbly into a kerosene lantern. At first I cursed the horrendous toll that had been paid by my generation—the first to be invited straight out of high school into a country-wide drug movement. Worse still, Mary had been lured east to one of those schools that made fun of everything she had held dear. I pictured smooth-tongued professors assaulting her like wolves in sheep-skin clothing—inviting her to turn her back on “The Man.” I imagined a classmate dropping LSD or some other hallucinogenic substance into her drink. Surely one or all of these things had combined forces to drag Mary down such a profoundly different path—one where she begged her way across America with a baby.

Next I wanted to help. I know, maybe Mary is fine, but all I could see was an image of her sitting alone in a shack and I wasn’t picturing Henry David Thoreau. But what could I do? What should I do? I hated feeling helpless. I wanted to board a plane or write a check or punch somebody. I wanted to do something. Of course, I didn’t have a clue what I should do.

Eventually an idea came to me. Why not return to my original plan? I wanted to thank the people who had been such good friends and role models. So, I’d write Mary a letter. Nothing fancy. No need to talk about her last forty years or mine. Just a brief explanation of how I had vowed to thank people who had been kind to me in my youth and she sat pretty high on that list. Since I hadn’t run into her in person, I’d drop her a line. I did just that.

After I mailed that letter to Mary, I was still feeling a bit tender around the edges. Usually when I’m feeling down I work hard to make things better or I at least turn the experience into a metaphorical teaching tool. Not today. Mary deserves better than to be reduced to an object lesson.

Instead I’ll end by saying that for once I probably did just the right thing—not too much, not too little. After a lengthy separation from my childhood friends, I sincerely thanked my buddies, including Mary, for their many kindnesses. Now I’ve honored Mary for not treating me as a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, despite the fact that I was, in every sense of the words, from the wrong side of the tracks.

And while these small acts of appreciation were not offered as gifts tucked in heart-shaped boxes and wrapped with a red ribbon, they were certainly gifts of love. Happy Valentine’s Day sweet Mary. Happy Valentine’s Day to you all.