Banana Republic

Since I arrived in Novell's Waltham office in January of 2005, there has been only one regular who shows up at the Fitness Center before 5 am, and within the last few months only one other who is there before about 5:30 am - - the latter individual would be me. Well, I have not made it to the Fitness Center since Monday of this week, but I have been told that some individual has started showing up at the gym during these same early hours. All my workout buddy and I know is that this interloper carries his gear in a bag emblazoned with a Banana Republic logo. We don't like this development. Not one bit. This displeasure brought to mind a story I had heard of a man's experience when he first moved to the eastern United States. I searched high and low for the actual reference and text, I had about given up, but at "press time" one more search idea occurred to me. I found the article in which the man shared his experience, and have reproduced the relevant portion below, which comprises the remainer of today's entry. MAGAZINE ARTICLE EXCERPT Once when I was working in California, I was offered a job in New York City. My employers told me people didn’t care about each other there. I couldn’t believe people could live the way they described. It made me want to go to New York City just to prove them wrong. But after six months working there, I was ready to concede my California friends were right. Then I decided I hadn’t made much of an effort myself. So I started a program to find out if New York City workers were really human. I lived in Scarsdale, about a 45-minute train ride from New York. The train ran exactly on schedule. I started noticing the habits of the commuters. They would leave home at exactly the same minute each morning, walk to the station, buy a New York Times, walk to a certain board on the platform, fold their paper, stand on that board until the train arrived, get on the same car, find the same seat, and read their newspaper all the way into Grand Central Station. They would never speak as they traveled their various routes. I decided the only way to get to know them was to break the routine. I selected a man I thought I would like to get acquainted with, and after observing his routine for a few days, I planned a counter-routine. I arrived at the station at about the same time he did. As soon as he started to walk down to his favorite board on the platform, I broke into a run and just beat him there, firmly planting my two feet on his favorite spot. This unnerved him so that he didn’t even unfold his newspaper. When the train arrived, I jumped on and took his favorite seat. He rode all the way into the city visibly disturbed. I believe I ruined the entire day for him. The next morning I repeated the same process. Then the most remarkable thing happened the third morning. When I arrived at the train platform, he was already there, firmly planted on his favorite board, reading his newspaper. I couldn’t help but laugh. He gave me a scowl, and then he couldn’t hold back either. I introduced myself as a new arrival determined to break the routine of a commuter. We had an enjoyable visit. We got on the train and talked all the way into New York. From then on, breaking each other’s routine became a game. We would race each morning for that favorite spot. Soon others noticed what we were doing, and before we knew it, there were three, then four, then five, then ten, all racing for that particular board each morning. The great friendships made then have endured many years. The cold New Yorker was just as friendly as anyone else. All you had to do was break through that city shell. (L. Tom Perry, “Good Friends,” New Era, Feb. 1993, 4 [entire article available at www.lds.org])