You Really Can't Judge a Book by It's Cover - Especially When It's Raining

We all need a swift kick in the pants sometimes.  I got mine one rainy Tennessee afternoon.  I used to live in downtown Nashville, and I enjoyed jogging every day from my apartment to LP Field (where the Tennessee Titans play) to do some laps around the field.  I always had my iPod with me, ear buds stuck in my ear, not paying too much attention to things, except where I was going, and dodging the many panhandlers that line the Nashville landscape.

On one of these jogs, after doing two laps around the field, I headed back to my apartment, crossing the pedestrian bridge over the Cumberland River, when it started pouring rain!  I was getting drenched, so I decided to duck under the awning of one of my favorite hangouts downtown, Broadway Brewhouse/Mojo's Grill, until the rain subsided a bit (which in Nashville can be 5 minutes or 2 hours).

Directly in front of me, while I'm waiting under the awning, is a pickup truck, I'm guessing a late S's model, possibly very early 80s.  This truck was so beat up and dented and rusty I couldn't imagine for one second that it actually ran.  I remember thinking, "This must belong to one of the many alcoholic street musicians, the sort who dropped out of high school to become a musician, only to find that Nashville is full of that type, and now they are stranded and practically homeless."  Just like most people, stereotypes pop into my brain (though most people swear they are above that...they're lying) without consciously realizing it.

With the rain still spilling around me, I continued analyzing the pickup truck, speculating about its owner, when I see two books on the dashboard through the windshield that smacked those stereotypical thoughts right out of my head:  Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and "Existentialism & Humanism" by Jean-Paul Sartre.  Wow, the person who owns/drives this truck is no slacker.  He/she is obviously intelligent and I've already written him/her off as a throw away without even knowing the person.

The rain finally let up and I jogged the three blocks back to my apartment, ashamed, yet better for it!

--Fortuitous Observer