By the time I finished high school, our family had called at least eighteen different places home: houses and apartments and even one garage. We moved often but not far, all within a fifty-five mile radius of Sweetwater, Texas.
My vision of the world expanded as almost every one of the fourteen members of our senior class boarded a school bus and traveled for a week in Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico!
The song, “There’s a World Outside of Yonkers, Barnaby,” from Hello, Dolly! comes to mind as I think of my need to look beyond the world I knew.
Cornelius Hackl is a thirty-three-year-old clerk at Horace Vandergelder’s Feed Store in Yonkers, New York, just north of New York City. It’s 1890, and Cornelius wants his co-worker, seventeen-year-old Barnaby Tucker, to go with him to see the sights of the Big City.
Mr. Vandergelder, a widower, leaves these two employees in charge of the store as he goes to Manhattan to meet the matchmaker, Dolly Levi, in hopes she will match him up with a second wife.
After their boss leaves, Cornelius sings to Barnaby, calling Yonkers with some thirty-two thousand people a “hick town” and New York with its million and a half a “slick town” that is “full of shine and full of sparkle.” They should go there and find adventure.
They can ride elevated trains and see the lights of Broadway; visit expensive restaurants: see shows at Delmonico’s or join the wealthy Astor family at Tony Pastor’s. Barnaby hesitates. Then Cornelius says they might even see the stuffed whale at P. T. Barnum’s Museum. The whale clinches the deal for Barnaby. But Cornelius sees something more romantic than Barnum’s whale: He’s determined not to come back until both he and Barnaby kiss a girl.
Once they get to New York, they find more excitement than they bargained for in the world outside of Yonkers:
• Barely escaping early detection by Vandergelder, they duck into a ladies’ hat shop.
• In the shop, they meet the proprietor, Irene Molloy, and her young helper, Minnie Fay.
• With less than a dollar between them, the guys claim to be men of means and convince Irene and Minnie Fay to go around town with them.
• Along the way, Barnaby asks whether they are having an adventure. Cornelius assures him, he will know it if he’s in an adventure!
• Dolly teaches them to dance and gets them to enter a dance contest at the expensive Harmonia Gardens Restaurant.
• At the restaurant, they find a wallet and use the money to pay for the meal.
• The wallet turns out to be Vandergelder’s.
• Vandergelder discovers they are away from Yonkers and raises a ruckus.
• The whole crowd is hauled off to the police station.
• At the station, Dolly gets everything straightened out and everybody off the hook.
• Cornelius sings to Irene: “It Only Takes a Moment to Be Loved a Whole Life Long.”
• Dolly convinces Vandergelder to marry her.
• She also makes him take Cornelius as a partner in the Feed Store.
Whether we’re from “hick towns” or “slick towns,” most of us need to discover a larger world, and the fellows discovered quite a bit of the world outside of Yonkers. With their mutual lack of experience and Barnaby’s youth, they stumbled through romantic encounters, risked their jobs, and faced potential legal trouble.
They acted unwisely, going off with very little money and no specific plans beyond seeing New York. They acted irresponsibly in walking away from their jobs after Vandergelder left them in charge of the store.
Even so, they made a start toward seeing the larger world by simply getting away from home base. Everyone who is physically able needs to get out of the of the house or apartment from time to time. Otherwise, those “four walls” can seem to close in. We need to associate with other humans rather than having only the TV or Internet for companionship. Structured activity with other people can keep us from closing in on ourselves, whether it’s a bridge club, bowling league, Lions or Kiwaniis service club, writers group, church, credit or non-credit courses of study, or sports teams. If schedule and money permit, there’s nothing like visiting other parts of the country or even leaving the country. As the saying goes, “Travel broadens the mind.”
At age thirty-three with little or no previous experience in romance, Cornelius’s stated desire to kiss a girl is fulfilled as he experiences love at first sight. And things come together for him. He gets engaged to Irene, and Vandergelder makes him a partner at the Feed Store. However, neither of these things would have happened without help from Mrs. Levi.
In her first words in the show, Dolly declares herself to be “a woman who arranges things” for pleasure and profit. She admits the “things” she arranges include other people’s lives. Many times, we are assisted along the road of life by wiser, shrewder, more experienced, perhaps older, friends and guides who save us from ourselves. We count our blessings for such people as we leave our comfort zones and venture into our particular worlds outside of Yonkers.
On a higher, yet deeper, level, the parable-poem, “Footprints in the Sand,” has been circulated in various forms and attributed to various authors. The narrator dreams of walking in the sand on the beach and having scenes from her life appear before her. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, at other times, only one set. She noticed the single set of footprints usually were those from times of stress and difficulty. Thinking of God’s promise to be near at all times, she asked why He had not been there at those trying times. He answered, “When there was only one set, the steps were mine. I was carrying you.”
If we are people of faith, we believe we have a source beyond our own knowledge who can guide us through the sometimes tortuous paths when we leave the familiar environment of our Yonkers and go into new ventures or adventures, in situations of our own making or circumstances over which we have little control.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.
In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.
It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones” (Proverbs 3:5-8).
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