Yesterday, my wife and I went on our (almost) daily afternoon walk. We take nearly the same route everyday, circumnavigating the same streets that surround our suburban Philadelphia home. Our neighborhood is comprised of a diverse mix of housing. There are twin homes (like ours, called "duplexes" in some parts of the country, although a "duplex" means something else in our area). There are apartment buildings and townhouses and there are huge, sprawling, multi-floor structures situated on expansive plots of land and featuring additional out buildings like guest houses and multi-car garages. Around the corner from our house is one such property. It is a corner lot, surrounded by a low concrete wall and a connected ornate wrought-iron fence. We have only seen the family that lives there on rare occasions. In summer months, we can hear them splashing in their hidden pool. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of them closing the front door after retrieving a package from the cobblestone walkway that runs parallel to the main entrance.
Yesterday, as we walked alongside the property's outer wall, we could hear a loud, repeating "clicking" sound emanating from their yard behind a cluster of trees. I mentioned to my wife that it sounded like a giant stapler, perhaps the industrial hammer-type used to apply roofing shingles. As we grew nearer and the the trees no longer impaired our sight lines, we discovered the actual source of the sound.
And it was chilling.
The family, as revealed by the distinctive way they dress, are Orthodox Jews. We have seen small children playing in the large yard. The boys sporting kippot (head coverings) securely attached to the crown of their skulls, their tzitzit (fringes on their prayer shawls) flopping at their hips. The girls clad in plain, nearly shapeless dresses. Sometimes we spot a woman watching the children. She is dressed in a similar, fashionless frock, an awkward sheitel (wig) perched upon her head.
Today, we saw a father in a plain white shirt and black tie with his pre-teen son — both wearing a customary kippot atop their respective heads. The "clicking," we discovered, was made by the pump action of two pretty imposing looking rifles — the kind I've seen countless gangsters in countless movies use to carve out an escape path from a precarious crime scene. Father and son were, apparently, cleaning their weapons outside in the cool evening temperatures.
My wife and I watched in disbelief, as every stereotype we ever had forced upon us shattered as though the victim of a well-aimed shotgun blast.
Don't be fooled by throngs of tattooed, shaved-head, camouflage-clad "rednecks," waving their Confederate flags, screaming about their God-given rights and the Second Amendment. Am I stereotyping?
Maybe...
Maybe I'm stereotyping a couple of times.
