What Matters Most……Commentary by Jim High
Last weekend one of my special friends arrived back in Tupelo for his 30th High School Reunion all the way from Sweden. Jonas was a Rotary Club Exchange Student from Helsingborg, Sweden, during the 1980-81 Tupelo High School year, and was a guest in my home for two months of the year he lived in Tupelo with various Rotary Club members and other families. That began a friendship that continues to this day.
Jonas has returned to Tupelo several times over these thirty years, and I have been to Sweden to visit him and met his brother and sister, as well as his Mother and Father, who have also visited Tupelo more than once during these thirty years. When Jonas married, I and two others from Tupelo attended his wedding in Sweden. I’ve also visited with Jonas and Cecilia while then lived in Paris and in London. Once I flew over to spend just a weekend with Jonas and Cecilia who were living in Brussels, Belgium, at the time. All that’s left will be to visit Stockholm again to see Jonas and Cecilia’s three children.
However, Jonas is not my only international friend, not even my only Swedish friend. Lars, who now lives in Luxembourg and works for the World Bank, was also a Swedish exchange student who spent a year in Tupelo. Back in the late 1980’s I visited Lars in Stockholm, and then we traveled through Europe together by train.
Rotary’s first two exchange students were from Australia, and in 1975 I went to Australia to visit them. In 1979 I visited a girl from France who had come to Tupelo as part of the advance team with the “Up With People” singing group that preformed in Tupelo. My traveling companion and I stayed with her and her family for several days.
In the late 1960’s I met a young Filipino girl while taking a Gray Line bus tour of Chicago. She was traveling alone all over the United States. We sat together on the all day tour of Chicago. She had not planned to go to New Orleans, but I convinced her that seeing the Big Easy was a must. We later stayed in touch by mail. And I found out that she had indeed changed her itinerary and loved New Orleans. When my family attended the World’s Fair in Japan in 1970, I arranged the trip so we could go to Manila to see her and her family.
On a trip in 1986 to Nairobi, Kenya, I took a three day safari to see the big game animals with a private driver in a small white van. We got to know our guide very well, as we were totally dependent on him as we toured the African savannah on dirt tracks to see the animals, as there are no official roads in the huge game parks. All of my travels have been on independent trips and not on prearranged tours. And I’ve stayed in many very small hotels and B&B’s where you get to know the people who run them.
Meeting and getting to know people from all around the world gives you a very different perspective and outlook about the connections that actually bind the whole world and its people together. You have heard it said that people are alike all over the world, and it’s true. It’s a valuable lesson and one that you can only learn by experiencing it.
It means you don’t make judgments about people as quickly, because when you get to know them and see how they live, you come to understand them. And understanding another person and another culture makes you realize that maybe we Americans are not the world’s greatest people. You find out that the world’s people are much more alike than they are different.
What Matters Most…….Anybody can be your friend when you realize that everyone everywhere actually wants and desires your friendship. If you accept people for who they are, where they are, they will also accept you in return. Friends make life wonderful and meaningful. I have a new friend on Facebook who lives in
© 2011 #12 Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467
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