Are You Dull or Interesting? Would Your Friends Tell You?

Did you find Mr. Rogers interesting?

Sam and I wonder if you think people are interesting. A friend of mine recently said she thought everybody was interesting, but I don’t really believe that. This reminds me of high school when a social studies teacher asked us students if we thought people were inherently good or inherently bad. I took bad, mostly to rile up the girls in the class. Truthfully though, I think badness is mostly a learned behavior. But let’s veer away from that subject.

I don’t think everybody is interesting. A former government appointee I once knew was not interesting to me because he told me no matter what the administration in power did he intended to keep his nose clean and his head under the radar so that he would outlast the administration long enough to collect his retirement pension. What a drone.

I did not find a guy I once knew in church interesting either. He was so needy of attention and help no matter what was done for him he complained that he wasn’t respected or loved enough, and so he wasn’t – at least not by me. I don’t find church people who constantly pray for miracles (so they’ll receive “a word” from God as to what he wants them to do with their lives) interesting either.

Other people I find not interesting are women who can talk about nothing other than their grandkids and who go to every danged sports event the grandkids participate in just to have a life. I also don’t find the ones who constantly hang out at department store makeup counters interesting either. And boy do I get tired of women who are so conscious of what they eat and keep turning vegan so they’ll live forever (snort!). And I don’t find men – especially real estate agents – who can talk only about their work or about sports, especially interesting. Cops are really bad about talking shop and not very interesting either.

Even Sam, who is the most loving little guy you’d ever want to meet and is interested in almost everybody, isn’t interested in some people. He often makes me wait for people to catch up to us in the park when we’re walking so he can greet them and get to know them, but not always. He’s such a glutton for coos and pets.

People I find interesting include my friend Paul Kratzig, who is such an avid booster of his old high school, and of almost everybody he meets. He makes people feel good about themselves. I honestly never have heard him say a bad word about anyone. Paul started a scholarship foundation for the high school, has hosted student seminars and has done so much good. He’s pretty incredible and unquestionably interesting.

My good friend Maggie Hayden also is an interesting person. Maggie worked for many years at a college in California before retiring to Washington. At 80 years old she still has a sharp wit (very funny), reads books voraciously, plays mah Jong and other card games and is a genuinely nice person.

A former pastor, Harold Schroeder, also was an interesting guy. Although the pastor of a church he was grounded in the realities of life. In fact, he asked me once during a period I was single how my sex life was. I nearly fell out of my chair, but he was genuinely concerned.

The most interesting person in my life, however, had to be my grandfather, Alberto Giuseppe Tonoli, who immigrated (legally) to America when he was a teenager, who told the most fascinating stories about his boyhood in Italy, who worked on dam construction and in a sawmill, among other things, and who loved his homemade wine and the polka.

Whether you believe all people are interesting or not, maybe you would like to share a story about a particular person with Sam and me. We’d love to hear from you. Don’t be shy. Be interesting.