For Thursday, December 25, 1997 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 644 words

Scratchet?

Forgiveness is an unsettling aspect of human nature. In many ways it's our saving grace, a psychological agreement that provides hope and endless potential for redemption, but in other ways it seems downright unfair and illogical.

Take Ebenezer Scrooge, for example, and Tiny Tim's dad, Bob Cratchet.

Here's Bob: he has been a nice guy his whole life -- compassionate, kind, generous, loving, considerate, thoughtful, a good husband, father, neighbor. Everybody loves Bob. When he walks down the street people wave and say "Good day to you, Bob." Bob is a nice guy.

Here's Scrooge: he has been a malicious curmudgeon his whole life -- lying, cheating, stealing, insulting. He has been greedy, hateful, mean, inconsiderate, and selfish. While being so, he has amassed a great fortune.

Then one day he realizes what a jerk he has been. He reflects over his life, and does so selfishly for the most part, as is his nature (up to now). He sees how he lost his girlfriend in his youth, and how nobody misses him when he dies. Again, he wants something. He wants love and admiration and can't get it. He can't buy it.

People love money, but they don't love other people just because of it.

The only humanitarian hook that sinks into Eb is the sight of the Cratchet's crummy Christmas and poor, little Tiny Tim, the crippled boy. Scrooge is so thick skinned that it takes an impoverished, soft-spoken, handicapped child to stir any philanthropic compassion within him. If Tiny Tim had been an impoverished ice-skating gymnast with a broken tooth, Scrooge may have missed the point entirely. It is only when he sees an example of the lowest, darkest depths of utter, pathetic, human despair that he takes notice.

Scrooge also sees something he wants in the Cratchet's home. He sees that the Cratchets love each other. He sees that they are sadly happy in their wretched state, and that the happiness comes from caring for each other. "God bless everybody."

When all is said and done, and the three ghosts leave Ebenezer sweating in his bed, Eb is reborn as a nice guy.

He throws back his goose-down blankets, hops out of his four-poster sack onto his Persian rug, runs across his mahogany floor in his silk pajamas and calfskin slippers, throws open his beveled, imported French crystal shutters and orders up the biggest, most expensive turkey in town. He runs over to the Cratchets and they hug and dance around. He gives them some money. Everybody pats everybody else on the back and they are now the best of friends.

Afterwards, when Bob and Eb walk down the street together, arm in arm, pals to the end, everybody waves and says, "Good day to you, Bob and Eb."

And that's the part that gets me. My craw sticks right there, at the imagined, logical epilogue. Bob is a nice guy his whole life, always a good Joe, while Scrooge gets to be a avaricious jerk for like 60 years. Yet, now, when they walk down the street, everybody in town loves them both equally. They stand, two men, on common ground.

And here's a Christmas question I'd like to leave with you: imagine this.

Bob Cratchet and Ebenezer Scrooge are walking down the street the following Christmas, on their way to serve food at the local shelter. Scrooge has become a famous philanthropist, giving all his money to worthy causes. Cratchet is his right-hand man.

While crossing a bridge, they see a person fishing on the bank below, and they wave. While waving, they both slip on a nasty patch of ice and are pitched backwards over the railing into the lake. You are the person fishing on the bank. Both men are drowning, 30 feet apart, and an equal distance from you. Who do you save first?