Door To Door - 2009

Yesterday I was outside on my front lawn. Picking up rose branches left from cutting roses for my kitchen counter. A man walked up to say hello to me. This was odd. I live in a cul-de-sac and usually people who are not my neighbors don’t walk up to me as I stand on my front lawn. The man was wearing a suit, a very white shirt, and a tie. It was a gray suit, not black, so he wasn’t a Latter Day Saint coming to tell me why I am wrong-headed in my atheism. Besides, they never come alone. The Latter Day Saints always come to me in trios.

“Hello,” he said, “I am starting a local business.” He named an investment firm, named for some long dead man, of which apparently he is opening a branch. “Sorry,” I said, “I’m very committed to my current firm. “Well, thank you,” he said, and shook my hand, and left.

Door-to-door investment counselors? It reminded me of the 1960’s, when my parents’ insurance salesman would come to our house. It felt like a moment in the Great Depression, men in suits, walking on pavements, calling on strangers. Or as though "Mad Men" had sprung to life on my sidewalk. Minus the hat. However, I commended him on his enterprise.