Funny Thing

In 1993 I moved myself and my business from Columbus, Ohio to Bluff City, Tennessee for personal
reasons. When I first moved I still had Ohio license plates on my car since I hadn't had a
chance to transfer them yet. As I was driving down the road a bunch of teenage boys passed me
and yelled out the window, "Damn Yankee." I just laughed it off. They were just young kids,
young enough to be my children and I probably did something just as crazy when I was their age.
A week or so later I went and purchased my Tennessee license plates and put them on my car.
Now, I was the same person, driving the same car. The only difference was that I now had a
different set of license plates. Nobody called me a "Damn" anything — I was suddenly accepted
as a member of the clan.

But the real surprise came when I made a quick weekend trip back up to Columbus, Ohio.
This time, a bunch of teenage boys passed me by and yelled, "Hillbilly" and pointed their
fingers at me simply because I had Tennessee license plates. What a riot!

The funny part is that I was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio and had lived there for almost
35 years. I certainly had resided in Columbus almost twice as long as these 16 and 17-year old
kids — yet they only judged me by my license plates that I was from the south. Not that it
matters to a hill of beans "where" you are from, this incident brings up something very
interesting about people.

How many times have you judged or been judged just from only the surface? How many times have
you believed a rumor without hearing the other person's viewpoint? How many times have you
jumped to conclusions only to find out the situation was completely reversed and you judged
wrong? How many times? Well, for me, it's been about 2 million plus! So I put myself right
there with the rest of the human race.

It's really very interesting how every one of us judges someone else to some degree.
Face it — we all do it. The only reason we feel guilty about it when faced with the truth
is because we know its wrong. You may even be trying to find excuses now as to "why" you
judge others — but the fact remains, we are all guilty of it.

So what can we do to relieve the guilt? Bow our heads, pray and ask for forgiveness.