Coming to Conclusions--and Feeling Dopey

 If you had bought cheap watches or handbags from a kid on the streets of Athens in early 2000, you would have thought he was like all the dozens of others doing the same thing. He and is family would be working hard the rest of their lives. He was from a  Nigerian immigrant family but born in Greece. The family worked at any jobs to try and make a living, and this watch-selling son  picked up a basketball as a skinny teenager. He was tall enough, and so some people began to help him develop his skill. That skill in 2021 saw him make 50 points in the finals of the NBA  for Milwaukee and be unanimously voted most valuable player--Giannis Antetokounmpo.

When I was at Wilson, we got a boy in from Tahoka whose family was working at the gin. They had been in Tahoka for several weeks, and since he couldn't speak English, they put him in Special Ed to try and help. At Wilson it was the same thing for Juan. After several days special ed teacher Cres asked me to take Juan in my 8th grade reading class during Cres' conference period. He could just sit in there and soak up English words we were speaking. Sure, I said, and got some simple books from the library for him to look at while we did our assignments. On Thursday I went over the spelling words we were going to have on a test the next day: pronounced them, wrote them on the board, had a study sheet for them,  and handed it out. On Friday I called out the words for the test,15 or 20 words. I saw Juan making marks on a paper and thought he was just drawing. Later he passed in his paper with the others. After class I started to grade the papers, saw Juan's, and realized he had written every word exactly right. He had taken words from another language, memorized how the strange letters went together, and written them down as I called them. Holy spelling words. I went to tell Cres that Juan didn't speak English but probably had an  amazing I.Q. to be able to do that. Sadly, he was only there another couple of weeks before they moved on to work somewhere else.

In 1888 a rancher in Santa Rosa, New Mexico made a cattle drive. He and neighboring ranchers had 2,500 head of cattle to get to to the northern markets. Near Clayton, New Mexico he knew he was short the number of cowboys needed for the drive and sent word that he would hire extras. A young cowboy replied, and the others found out that he was an excellent hand. They called him The Kid because he looked so young. He helped them through some difficult times on the drive, and when they got to Colorado, the rancher paid off those who wanted to stop there, and The Kid told the others that he was getting homesick. They hated to part with him but honored his wishes. A day or so later when the rancher had the money to pay The Kid, a young girl came to the designated place. The rancher asked who she was. "The Kid," she said. "I'm The Kid." The rancher thought it couldn't be possible, but after asking enough questions about what had happened on the drive, he had to agree that no one had realized that a girl could do the work of a cowhand and do it well.

It is a habit we all have: judging a situation by what we have seen in the past and thinking that everyone fits in the same categories. When we find out we were wrong, we maybe think of all the clues that were there. Or maybe we just chalk it up to the fact that surprises can come anywhere, any time, and it is a joy in life to witness one.