There is an ancient story of a traveler who came upon a woman sitting on the edge of her village. “What are the people like in your village?” he asked. She asked him what the people were like in the place from which he had come. “Oh,” the traveler moaned, “they were greedy and mean and treated me badly.” “So you will find them here,” she said. A short while later, another traveler arrived at the rock on which she sat. “What are the people like in your village?” he inquired. Again she asked what the people were like from his village. “Oh,” he said, “they were generous and kind, and we took good care of each other.” “So you will find them here,” she said.

Having heard that story, I set out to test its truthiness. I am too much of this world to believe other people’s reactions can be controlled solely by my perception of them. However, I did hear of an experiment that involved multiple sets of two people engaged in a conversation with each other, while monitors were attached to pulse-registering spots (I’m sure there’s a fancy name for them, but I wouldn’t know. Apparently, there are various places you can register your pulse, including the front of your head.) One of the two was secretly told that they were to send compassion to the other person during this conversation. At some point the forehead pulse of the people who were receiving these feelings shifted to be in sinc with the person sending that compassion. There were exceptions, those being people who had reported in a questionnaire that they had felt unloved in their childhoods and had not resolved these past feelings. In other words, some people just can’t feel the love, rather like the grouchy characters at the end of C. S. Lewis’s The Last Battle. They were at a feast in Heaven, believing they were eating slop out of a pig trough.

So I went on a bit of a quest in Colville, curious to see if that story, confirmed in that bit of research, held true here. Not the kind of research you could write a dissertation on, mind you, but I have no professors to woo. I went into various stores before and after Christmas. In one store before Christmas I found myself face to face with a stern grouch, but I’m not telling tales out of school, because that’s not the point of this article. Everyone else I talked to was great. The kitchen store folks engaged me in a fun conversation. The Reflections seamstress was grand, but that’s cheating because my son and her son are friends. I’m thinking she’d be like that anyway, but maybe my German grandfather’s genes create some kind of kinship with this Deutche frau. I love EZ Knit, and they are friendly, but, to steal a line from my brother’s descriptions of his wife’s trips to Nordstrom’s, their cash register emits smoke when I enter. When the toy store didn’t have what I needed, they looked it up in their catalog instead of just sending me on my way.

I just basically found people to be kind and engaging. My quest doesn’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that shopkeepers are perfect here, but I liked my experiences. If you have any details from Colville or other towns, perhaps contrasting the two types of people described in the ancient story above, please email me at cwilson417@msn.com.

The North Columbia Monthly provides news, views, humor and a calendar of events for an area that stretches from Nelson in British Columbia south to Spokane in Washington State and covers all points in between. A free (and free-thinking, progressive) magazine, The Monthly is available at several hundred spots throughout the region and now is also available on-line at www.ncmonthly.com. Published once a month since 1994, The Monthly is an independent magazine that often challenges contemporary wisdom by encouraging critical thinking about issues and attitudes in the region and beyond.

Featuring our one-of-a-kind "What's Happening" department, The Monthly provides the region's only all-inclusive, free listing of community events and is the first place many people check to find out about area arts, crafts, music, fairs, services and events of all kinds. Our open listing policy for the "What's Happening" department promotes diversity, cultural interaction, and the exchange of ideas and free expression. Also featured in the magazine are people, food, health, humor, and feature articles that keep readers coming back for more each month.

We can be reached by mail at The North Columbia Monthly, PO Box 541, Colville, WA 99114; by phone or fax at 509-684-3109; by email at editor@ncmonthly.com; and on the Web at www.ncmonthly.com.

©2008. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the contents or use in whole or part without written permission from the publishers is strictly prohibited. Views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the publishers.

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