'Be Kind' initiative

This time I am straying from my mother Marion Deaver's history articles to explain something I have decided to do.

Over the New Year weekend I was bored, so I decided I was going to read the entire Sunday newspaper from cover to cover. In that process I began to read Parade Magazine, a Sunday supplement.

During that read, I found an article entitled "Resolution: Kindness – Let's Make 2017 the Year of Being Kind."

The article featured a photo of Lady Gaga with her quote to encourage kindness: "Kindness is showing Love to someone else. I believe that Kindness is the cure to violence and hatred around the world."

Like Lady Gaga or not – it is a great quote - especially in this last year of 2016 – where politics have divided the country during the Presidential election all the way down to local politics everywhere.

I have been following politics since 1960, when John F. Kennedy was elected president. I remember a few days later when Saturday Evening Post arrived at our house with a portrait of JFK on the cover. I was 10.

My family was Republican and voted for Nixon. I knew that they were not happy with a wealthy, Eastern, and Catholic soon to be President. When I saw the magazine, I slapped the photo and said "Yuk – huh Mom?"

My mother walked over to me, stuck her finger in my face and said, "That man is our President and we will treat him with respect, understand?"

I shook my head in the affirmative and that was the end of it. But I never forgot that lesson to this day!

Presidents have come and gone since then, along with Governors, county supervisors, and city councilpersons – and I still remember my mother's words.

Sometimes I have been happy – sometimes NOT! But I have never demonstrated in the streets, stood up at meeting and yelled at elected officials, refused to go to college classes, or sat down in the middle of the streets or freeways.

After all of this and reading the article on Kindness, I decided that Tehachapi could use a little Kindness as well.

As I was reading the things cities have done to promote Kindness, I saw that Tehachapi already does many acts of Kindness. We support our senior citizens, many groups in the city give out scholarships, and we work to partner with Friends of the Depot and other groups, all of which was mentioned in the article to begin to promote Kindness.

Then it came to me (with probably a bunch of help from God) –Why not make simple signs that say "Be Kind." We could have little signs with which to cover our entire valley and the city to proclaim that we want our valley to treat others with Kindness.

One thing led to another, signs have been printed, and we will be ready to hand out those signs to anyone willing to put them in their yards or business windows.

I agreed to pay for the first batch of printing, but people have been coming up and giving me money! I had enough to pay for the first 50 signs, which are now ready.

I took my idea to South Street Digital and they agreed to design and print the signs. I wanted business cards to give to people who we see doing kind acts. South Street Digital announced that they would donate the cards – to help with a good thing!

The signs will be available by contacting me. Send an email to my city email address which is listed on the city website. I will also have them with me when I attend meetings or functions in this valley.

When we run out of the first 50, we will have to accept donations for the next bunch to be printed.

The city is behind this initiative, but it will not cost the city one dime – only through donations will we be able to print more signs.

I cannot think of a better way to start the New Year then to encourage all of us to be Kind to one another...