Meeting Johnny

Today was slow and hot unlike the cool weather in San Francisco . Although the mornings are hot here, the evenings are usually cool. The highlight of our day was our almost daily after dinner walk. We wanted to walk to the end of the dock and right before we reached there, we saw a fisherman sitting there looking so focused and serious. He seemed so entertained by what he was doing and I was right. His name is Johnny, an African-American who was born and raised in Los Angeles. About 18 years ago, he moved to Yosemite, started a locksmith business and started practicing his hobby, fishing. Johnny was a bit quite yet friendly and he made us feel comfortable talking to him. He shared things but he didn’t want to go too deep. I wanted to listen to his story. I wanted to know about his life here in Yosemite and before that but he seemed mysterious. The most thing I wanted to hear about is the discrimination he faced in his life. When we told him we met many nice people and some xenophobic people. He comforted us and said he met some mean people too. Apparently, he was called names a lot in his life. I think that Johnny goes by the golden rule of treating people how you would like to be treated. Sometimes when you are mistreated many times, you become bitter and you treat everybody this way because it’s the only way you are used to. Johnny is not like that, he is kind and too clever to do so. He said that when somebody treats him well, he does the same thing but if they frown at him, he will do the same thing too.