Wisdom on the Feed Store Porch

There’s a little country store down the road where men still sit on the porch, whittling away time and the occasional piece of cedar. The screen door squeaks when you pull it open, and the bell above it jingles like a reminder that civilization hasn’t completely forgotten where it came from.

Most mornings, if you stop by early enough, you’ll find Earl, Clyde, and Miss Hazel, yes, Miss Hazel, solving the world’s problems before the coffee even cools. Earl’s the talker, Clyde’s the listener, and Hazel’s the one who usually turns out right in the end.

Now, last Tuesday, the talk turned to the upcoming town meeting about whether to put a four-way stop at the crossroads by Miller’s pasture. Someone had started one of those online polls asking folks what they thought.

By lunchtime, everyone from here to the county line had voted on it, even folks who hadn’t driven through that intersection since the Reagan years.

“Reckon we’ll just see what the numbers say,” Clyde muttered, blowing steam off his coffee.

Hazel shook her head, like a mother hen disappointed in her brood.

“Numbers don’t drive that road,” she said. “People do. And most of the people voting don’t even know there’s a blind curve behind Miller’s sycamore tree.”

Earl nodded, whittling another curl of cedar to the pile at his boots.

“That’s the trouble with polling data,” he said. “It tells you what folks think they know, not what they’ve actually seen.”

The conversation drifted on from there, how the world gotten used to asking strangers what they should think instead of using their own good sense. Everyone’s carrying around a supercomputer in their pocket, yet half the time they can’t decide what to eat without a dozen opinions and three reviews.

Hazel finally stood up, dusted biscuit crumbs off her apron, and said, “Sound decisions come from reasonable knowledge, not from a crowd hollerin’ ‘aye’ or ‘nay.’”

Then she pointed a finger at Clyde, “You’ve seen near misses at that crossing, haven’t you?”

He nodded, “Two in the last month.”

“And Earl, didn’t you say that big oak limb hangs low enough to block a driver’s view?”

“Sure does.”

“Then what do we need a poll for?” she said. “We already know the truth. The stop sign’s needed, and no percentage bar or pie chart is gonna tell us otherwise.”

She climbed into her old Ford and drove off toward the meeting, leaving the men in a cloud of common sense and dust.

That night, the town voted to put up the sign, unanimously, not because of data, but because Hazel stood there, steady as a fencepost, and told the truth plain.

Funny thing, folks quit checking the online poll after that. When reason comes into play, numbers tend to lose their impact.