Karns Quality Blog

Yesterday evening, I visited my good friend in the Shipoke neighborhood of Harrisburg.  Because of time constraints, I drove the two or three miles down there.  On my way back, I cruised up 2nd Street, the main drag in town.  The temperature has moderately dropped, and my windows were down as I enjoyed the reprieve from Summer’s heat.  It felt like a good time to be alive.

I hit a red light at 2nd and Market and stopped among the traffic right in the center of Harrisburg’s business district.  This is a corner that also tends to attract some of the city’s stranger residents.  Sure enough, on the corner was a simply dressed, bearded man holding a sign with one word: repent.  The man was angrily shouting in a rough voice that was difficult to understand.  I managed to hear clips of phrases erroneously mixing religion and politics.

I didn’t like it.  I can’t stand it when these people come into our city to stand on the corner and shout at me that I’m going to hell.  I didn’t want to hear it, and I didn’t want other people to have to suffer through it either.  I looked over at the man, and breifly made eye contact.  I held his stare for a single second, just enough time for each of us to recognize the connection.  Then, I diverted my eyes, and the man kept shouting his political preaching.

At the moment, I was listening to a modern jazzy instrumental section in Mound, a pleasant but little known Phish song.  Simultaneously, I verified that every window was rolled down, and I steadily increased the volume on my radio as the tension built in the jam.  By the time the light turned green, the music was pouring out of my car into the surrounding street, After attempting to yell over it for a few seconds, the quasi-political preacher man shut up!  I paused for one more second and gave the man an evil little smile before continuing on my drive.