My Friend Barry.

I was walking down through the shopping centre yesterday and I overheard a remark being made by a man to the person walking with him. The remark took me back many years. My memory of those things seems as fresh as the day they happened.

I heard this man say as he pointed towards another, "one card short of a full deck." His friend laughed. I looked at the person they had pointed at and then turned my attention back to them. Seemed to me that they could easily have been talking about each other.

It is so easy to open our mouths and say something without thinking of what it is we are saying. If somebody else agrees with you or finds what you have said funny before you know it somebody has become the butt of all jokes.

I remember a young lad who worked beside me his name was Barry. Barry had his problems, he was slow on the uptake. What to some people seemed like a simple task took Barry a bit longer to work out. 

One day somebody made a comment about him. “Room temperature IQ, that one.” Everybody found it very funny, and before long Barry became the one who people poked fun at in order to join the crowd. Here are a few others of the things that were said about him.

                        

•    One short of a six-pack.
•    Bright as Alaska in December.
•  If brains were taxed he would get a rebate.
•   Posses the wisdom of youth and the energy of old age.
• He must have got into the gene pool while the lifeguard wasn’t watching.
•  He reached rock bottom long ago – and then he kept digging.
• The doors are open, the lights are on, but nobody is at home.
• He is depriving some village of an idiot.

So it went on. A book could have been written of all the little quips that people came up with about Barry. 

Well maybe. But I like Barry, and I think Barry liked me. 

He was the one who always had a kind word to say to me when I met him. 
He was the one who always asked if I needed anything. Truth is if I wanted somebody to help me with anything Barry would have been the first person I would have gone to find.

He did not impose himself in any way on anybody but he was a good person. 

It is easy to make the off the cuff remark without thinking about the consequences of the remark. 

I have often found it to be the case that what people accuse another of is so often the failing of their own lives.

The person who has surrounded themselves with possessions, and never has that little bit to give to charity, accuses others of being greedy. The selfish person always seems to point the finger at others for being selfish. The person prone to lies is always fast to accuse another of being untruthful.

Barry was,

Sunshine on a rainy day.
Full of concern with packs of caring.
The wonderful innocent giving of the child within.

Yes, I liked Barry.  

Just a thought. We could all do with a little more barry in us.