Step up and ‘tip up’: Reach out across the classes to show respect and understanding

When’s the last time you asked your cab driver’s name? Or asked him where he hails from? When’s the last time you called your waiter at a restaurant by a first name? How about the person waiting on you at a retail store? Any chance to engage in an ever-so-brief conversation besides the standard “how’s your day going” that’s drilled into some sales forces these days?

As income inequality has worsened in recent years and since the 2016 election, the divides that separate the haves from the somewhat-haves and the have-nots seems to be wider and deeper than ever. Not only has income inequality grown to historic proportions, but social or cultural inequality — the likelihood that people from very different places on the socio-economic ladder interact, know and understand each other’s station in life — seems also on the rise.

And when we do interact, it is under the most impersonal of circumstances — the few minutes waiting in a shopping line, the few minutes in a cab or Uber ride, or the few minutes sitting next to a stranger waiting for a license renewal. Do we take the time to chat with the repairman who services a household appliance?

This courtesy of calling someone by name as a show of respect was something the novelist, Jonathan Evison, yearned for while hanging out on one of the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder. When he was in his 30s and working a variety of odd jobs — including mowing lawns — he bristled at rich guys who dismissed him as a lawn boy with no name and no particular expertise – when, in fact, he was a topiary expert and could turn owners’ hedges into works of art. Too often, Evison was treated as a lackey of the owner, asked to do chores that had nothing to do with his trade.

He decided to take his angst about these indignities and turn it into what he calls working-class fiction, helping readers pay more attention to the life circumstances of others less fortunate. He points to Dickens’ novels of Victorian working-class England as models for what he strives to achieve in his writing. In “Lawn Boy,” the novel, it’s clear that Evison wants his readers to understand the struggles it takes for some folks just to get through the day.

Evison takes umbrage at one reviewer who labels his characters “losers” when he sees in them the same hopes and dreams all Americans hold dear. It’s just that their place behind the starting line of life holds them back from opportunities handed to others on silver platters.

The lawn boy in Evision’s novel is Mike Munoz, a 22 year-old whose father left the family — not unlike Evison’s own boyhood — and now his mother struggles to keep up with parenting chores and working long hours to support the boys. His mother’s double shifts leave Mike with the family chores, including looking after his developmentally disabled brother, Nate, as Mike is “trying to figure out who the hell he really is, what he’d actually like to do with his life.”

The parade of characters that move through Mike’s young life offer vivid portraits of life in America, from the country club set to those who clean up afterward. Notwithstanding all the preconceived notions that the upper and middle class may have of those beneath them, Evison’s characters exemplify traits and values across a broad spectrum, but in the end show the decency and morality you find in people struggling to make ends meet.

What’s most reaffirming about how things turn out for Mike Munoz is how those closest to Mike respect his life and career decisions. Out of the goodness of their hearts and their belief in his dream, they are there for him right down to his most personal awakening at the conclusion of the novel, as will readers who will be rooting for Mike to the end.

Since reading “Lawn Boy,” I’ve thought about how to show compassion and concern for those around us who struggle with life’s challenges. Not long ago, The Cabin hosted Matthew Desmond, the author of “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.” Desmond chronicled how the poor are often exploited by slumlords using the letter of the law and the heavy hand of government enforcers to throw children and their families out on the street. After the presentation, a questioner asked Desmond what the average person can do about this. Desmond’s answer was not expected, but he simply said “tip up” the next time you visit a restaurant.

In other words, abandon that silly habit of tipping on the amount before tax, as though it’s the server’s fault that state and local government slapped a tax on the meal. If the goal is a living wage for those who wait tables, why not a more realistic and generous take on the value added by waiters and servers?

Thanks to Treefort and Storyfort, Jonathan Evison will be in Boise on March 21 to bring his characters in “Lawn Boy” to life. That should boost the book’s sales and help boost the respect and understanding we have for fellow travelers. But I’m betting it will also boost tipping up in Boise, and that’s a good thing.