Good/Bad Neighborhood

Nothing new that we people tend to categorize locations, people, items, events as either good or bad. I know I have caught myself locking my car door when I drive through a 'bad' neighborhood but the thought doesn't occur to me when I'm in a 'good' neighborhood.

I learned a valuable lesson last year about assessing people/things/locations based on whether it looked dirty & old= bad and clean & new= good.

I went over to a friends apartment to scrapebook and it was my first time to her apartment. It was in a area of town that I categorized as 'bad'. Just based on how things appeared to me. What I didn't know was that my cell phone had fallen out of my pocket when I was crossing the street to get to my friend's apartment. 10 mins later I was sitting with my friend and her cell phone rings and she says, your calling me.' How can I be calling you, I'm right here! Turned out a family driving by in a car saw my cell phone and picked it up, called the last ph# I had in my phone record which was fortunately my friend's cell.

The people said they would swing around the front of the apartment again if we would meet them outside the gate to hand me back my cell phone. We met them outside and my first impression of the family was "how many people can they fit in that car!" The 4 door car was battered and old and it looked like 2 families where squished in the back seat. I thought to myself
" let that teach me never to judge a place or person based on how it appears on the outside."

I thought of this memory cause I was in the Bible book store today and some ladies where talking about that highly publicized missing person case that happened 5 days ago. They were saying how that was a 'bad' area of town and little wonder that it had happened where it did. I was thinking 'wow, that is actually 5 minutes from my house' and it's not 'bad'!