Books and Their Covers...

This happens all of the time:

My long haired boyfriend and I were walking through WalMart the other day when our cart crossed the path of a woman who was probably about our parents age. Rather than say "Excuse me" (after all, we were on the right side of the aisle) she stood, huffed and puffed, as if she expected that we should move without her having to ask for assistance.

My boyfriend, he of the amazing bass abilities, went out of our way to...well, get out of hers. Which is nicer than I was thinking about being. Honestly, I would have made her actually excuse herself, or-and this is a noble concept-go around us. But this is the kind of person Kevin is. He sees the way to make someones life a little easier and will go out of his way to help out. I don't know if it's Karma or how he was raised, or just the inherently good person that he is. . . but I have a feeling it's a mix of all three. This is one of the things I love about him!

What happens all of the time is that people look at him with his long hair and his beard, some of which hides under any one of his collection of funky hats, his leather bomber jacket and cigarette hand and they judge. Harshly. Some people look at him like he's a terrorist and they're trying to remember his description while others visibly scoff at him. It could be a game if it weren't saying something about how we, as people, are terribly judgemental.

They have no idea who they're judging.

Last night, the region I live in experienced a torrential snow storm. Literally, more snow fell in 12 hours than  the entire winter season of last year. My boyfriend, on his way from his gig with his band to the home where he was dog sitting, helped a friend get his car un-stuck. When he was almost to his house sitting place, he saw a car stuck in the opening to the housing track. Once his own car got stuck trying to avoid the original stuck car, he walked down to the bottom of the hill and helped the people get their car out of the snow. Did they offer to help him? No. Did he complain? Not once. After much internal debate, he went to the home he was staying at and figured he'd come back to his car in the morning.

When he returned to his car, there was a sheriff searching it. The people whose home the car had gotten stuck in front of called the police to report it. When Kevin arrived to his car, there was an older man being walked down the driveway with people on either side acting as a crutch. Kevin asked if the man needed help, since that seemed a bit more urgent than his car. Immediately, the people on either side of Kevin began yelling at him and telling him that it was his fault for having his car stuck there.

Because Kevin totally wanted to leave his car, with all of his equipment, on the side of the road overnight. Yep. It was his plan. Nothing makes Kevin, a gigging bassist and former mechanic, happier than abandoning his car and band equipment in a snow pile. Especially with plows coming through. I'm sure he was all like, "Meh," when he decided to get out of the snow himself and take care of the dogs that were waiting for him. Nobody stopped to thank him for digging out two cars that weren't his own before leaving his overnight because he couldn't do it on his own, and he sure as hell was not going to go knocking on doors at 3a.m. asking for help. They'd rather assume the worst and treat him like a criminal because his car got stuck in the worst winter storm we've had in years.

I watch this man and his selfless actions go un-noticed completely the majority of the time. Kevin's the first one who will help you when you're in need and the absolute last person to ask for help when he's struggling. I've watched him deal with things that would make any other person curl up in a ball and cry, and he takes them standing tall and steady, calm, focused, alert and able. He never complains, never barks back, never says he cannot when he truly can't. He absorbs so much of the terrible things, actions and words that get thrown at him and I simply cannot understand how everyone doesn't see past the long hair...which he's growing out to donate for children's wigs, by the way.

Exactly.