THIS is our test.

Hard times in the iris patch... but life goes on...

One of the advantages of living through extraordinary times, are the landmark moments which will stick with you the rest of your life. They might be hilarious or tragic, but they will occupy a permanent corner of your brain for the rest of your life, and each will become a self-defining tile in your life's mosaic. The way I remember the ass-kicking I took in the boys bathroom in fourth grade.

Half a dozen boys, crushed at the news just announced, did not take my sarcasm very well. All I had said was, “My parents are Republicans... we didn't vote for him anyway.”

That's right, President Kennedy had just been murdered in Dallas with thousands of Texans looking on. And these fourth graders wanted to hurt somebody. And I had been terribly naive about freedom of speech. If I had not done some fast talking, they would have surely beat me until “you are just a grease spot in the concrete.”

So one of my first “life lessons” was to not indulge in political grudges during a national crisis.

How we react, how we treat one another during these extraordinary times, the things we do with each other, will live much longer than the virus. None of us will probably know a single person who will perish from the disease, but plenty of us will experience either smallness or magnanimity in our own neighborhoods, as we all cope and watch others cope with a historic, worldwide calamity.

Standing in line, keeping our distance, shopping for “our brand” along stripped store shelves, listening to strangers tell of their troubles... bustling among masked strangers who just want to go home as soon as they can. This is your opportunity to be a “good Samaritan.” This is your test.

It's not a free-for-all until things get back to normal, and you can return to your kind self. This is your test. It does not matter how you treat people when everything is great. It matters what you do “when the chips are down.” This is your self-defining moment. You will never forget how you reacted... what you said in jest, or in meanness, or what you may have done in a moment of mercy. They will all be there to revisit, your instinctive actions to remind you for the rest of your life... that there are times when the only thing to do is to be gracious, charitable, even sacrificial, giving as Jesus commanded, the cloak off of your back.

This noble aspiration, this broad view of neighborliness, is what defines the character of the best of America, and ingrained in many Texans. We will learn once again what it means to suffer and endure as a country, and learn that we, our fellow citizens, are our best resource. Black, white, Republican, Democrat, Skinhead, Socialist, innie our outie, we are all countrymen... and we share much more in common than we differ in philosophies.

I truly believe it will be, for many of us who never faced WWII, or who grew up admiring (and paling in comparison to) the “Greatest Generation,” our own “proudest moment.”