The old Mans Hat

One day as I walked down the sidewalk on the way home from grade school I saw an old man sitting on a metal folding chair next to a tree watching all of us school kids as we passed by his used furniture & junk store. Thinking that I’d be cool in front of my friends I flipped off his hat as I ran by him. He yelled out at me, as he picked his hat up off of the brick sidewalk.

That night however, we as a family all sat around the super table eating and then one of my older brothers began to inform my Dad what happened on the way home from school. What I didn’t realize was that my brothers were right behind me and witnessed the entire episode. I tried to deny it by saying that I accidentally bumped into the old man.

I can’t remember for sure what happened after that but I do recall that I went back the next day to meet with the man and I had to apologize to him. My Dad didn’t seem to believe my story and he always had a way of figuring me out. My Dad knew the old man and he knew all of my brothers because they had delivered news papers to him.

I eventually figured it out that many times as we deal with real life situations such as these we make quick decisions to do dumb things. There was no reason for me to knock off the old mans hat, but I guess I wanted some approval from my friends, or to lie about it because of fear of getting into trouble. This was an example of how pride came along and took me for a ride. Trying to lie out of it was like being picked up for speeding into a dead end street. The more you lie the more of a trap you get into. My wise Dad knew that I lied and the old man? Well he was happy to see that justice was served after I offered an embarrassing apology.