Someone Else's Skin

I can't remember the very first time I saw the film, To Kill a Mockingbird. I believe it was somewhere around my early 20's. I will turn 50 this October, and in the last 30 years I have probably watched it at least 5 times. I loved the film, and was even set to name my second child Atticus, but God gave me a girl. Seeing the film almost 30 years ago you would think that at sometime I would have read Harper Lee's novel that the book was based on. I am ashamed to say that I had not, until now. Back in July, I was cast in a local production of To Kill a Mockingbird. In some of our very early rehearsals, the director suggested that we read the novel to get a real feel of the background of the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, the setting for Lee's story. So, 2 weeks ago, I trotted into Barnes and Noble and bought the novel. Now, I am not much of a reader. It's not that I don't enjoy reading, I've just always been a child of television and movies. It was like pulling eye teeth to get me to do any of reading in high school. I became the master of skimming to get the general idea. In fact, I became so good at it, that I once received an A+ on a critical analysis I turned in on D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, a book I never read, but only skimmed with this comment, "This is one of the best critical analyses I have ever read on this book!" Go figure. So...I got lazy and coasted most of the time when it came to required reading. This time was different. I was really reading this book for research for a part on the stage, my true passion. I am so glad that I did. I finished it today, exactly two weeks after I started it. I cried several times. I laughed, and I thought....a lot! This book was written in 1960, 3 years before I was born. It's setting takes place in 1935, but the themes are just as relevant today, maybe even more so. Many people think this book is about race, black and white, and how we treat each other, and to some degree it is, but it's so much more. Atticus, after finding that his daughter, Scout, has had some trouble with her teacher at school tells her, "If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." I don't know about you, but I think that one simple trick, as Atticus puts it, is the answer to world peace. I can't say that I always do that as I encounter people each day. I'm surprised, considering I must have heard my grandmother say a million times that we should follow the golden rule. If you don't know what that is, I'll enlighten you, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." As I read this beloved story, Harper Lee put me in someone else's skin several times, the falsely accused Tom Robinson, the physically abused Mayella Ewell, the neglected Dill Harris, the poverty stricken Cunninghams, the courageous addict, Mrs. Dubose,  and of course, the reclusive Boo Radley. As I "walked around" in their skin, I learned a thing or two about myself, and hopefully next time a situation arises,  I won't be so quick to pass judgement or assume the worst about someone, and maybe, just maybe, they might extend me the same courtesy.