Tour Tales

I love getting folks from faraway places as tour guests in Niagara Falls.

Saturday, I added guests from Uzbekistan and Chechnya to my summer list as well as enjoying a visit with soccer crazy Columbians.

“Where are you from?” I asked my new friend Aslam, an Islamic man with a Conservatively dressed wife in a full, head-to-toe Hijab pushing a stroller with two infants.

“We are from Chechnya,” he said, “not Czech, Chechnya.”

“I know Chechnya” I said. “Isn’t that the country Putin illegally occupied?”

“Yes, you know it. We don’t like Putin.”

His English was excellent. He said he had to be at an embassy in Los Angeles in a few days and tend to the matter of citizenship for his daughters who needed a Russian passport to return home. I didn’t fully understand but he was disappointed to not be allowed to fly a drone over the waterfall.

The Uzbek women also wore Hijabs as well but now call the Pittsburgh area home, they were friendly, kind and spoke English.

Another guest the other day came from Texas. He had a sour look in his face from the start, an angry man from the Dallas area shaking his fist and yelling at the clouds. I forgot a caveat I usually tag on to the story of Bishop Silvester Beaman of the AME Church.

The caveat: “When the President of the United States calls and asks a favor, regardless of politics, you say yes.”

The Beaman story, told to me on Calumet Avenue is this:

“When Bishop Beaman grew up there were good jobs in the chemical plants. He stood on a corner and pointed where homes used to be. That family raised children that became engineers. That family’s children became educators. That family had a daughter grow up to lead an opera and a son who conducts and orchestra.

“Bishop Beaman became a clergyman in Dover, Delaware. In November, 2020 he finished his Bible study at just after 9 p.m. when his phone rang. It was Joe Biden.

“ ‘Silvester,’ President Biden said, ‘I need a favor’”

“ ‘Of course, Mr. President, anything you need.’”

“‘Can you do the Benediction at my inauguration?’”

“It would be an honor.”

As we walked toward the Maid of the Mist, that sourpuss Texan pulled me aside, “Fuck Joe Biden,” he said. “That asshole let 20 million illegals into my country!”

Then he pulled out his wallet and showed me a card identifying himself as a disabled veteran. “Thank you for your service, sir,” was all I could say.

“You are very welcome,” he said, shaking my hand. I gave him his Maid ticket and never saw him again. He did not rejoin the tour.

Another Saturday guest guest, this one from Salt Lake City, told me he was a Marine and he can’t stand our current President. I related the story of the Texan to him. He just shook his head. He was of Mexican ancestry but proudly served his country and is a dedicated father to a 15-year old son, his most important job in life. He is a sales leader for a medical device company that mostly deals with the VA.

“This is America. You can be whatever you want, including miserable. You should have reminded that jackwagon from Texas,” he said.

I thought about that but in a world where you can be anything, I choose to be kind.