8-10-10 Wednesday - Inspired by Community

The people here in Michigan have a wonderful sense of community & connections; they are super friendly & sociable. An example of what I've seen:

Mia & Deb (Mia's friend) stopped for gas on one of our outings; Deb gets out of the car to pump gas and Mia goes into the station to use the "little girls room". When Mia comes back out to the car she says to Deb, "I must look local, the attendant just asked me where CMU is. And of course I don't know and told
him sorry." Deb tells Mia it's in Mt. Pleasant. By this point Mia had already started cleaning the front windshield. Deb finishes up what she's doing and says she's going to run inside for a potty break also, Mia recommends she tell the attendant where CMU is located because he seemed to really want to know.
While Deb is inside, the gentleman at the car next to us thanks Mia for washing the windshield because it reminded him to do his also, and he really appreciated that. Then a women at the car on the other side of us said "CMU is located in Mt. Pleasant" (obviously she missed that we already figure it out) but we thanked
her for her help with the information. Deb returned to the car and told Mia that she'd told the attendant the answer when she walked in. He apparently was very happy for the information because he thanked her and then proceeded to thank her 3 more times when she came back out from little girls room.

I thought this was all so wonderful because the attendant felt comfortable enough to ask anyone the question he had, the people in the cars around us either wanted to be helpful or even give credit of helpfulness with the reminder of Mia just performing a normal task, Deb's willingness to share the information she knew, and the attendants thankfulness for getting the information he wanted.  All of this communicated a sense of community the people of Michigan seem to share with each other.