HOPE by the Story Teller
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March 27, 2017, Hope
A neighborhood in Topeka, KS is an eye catcher. The streets are red cobble stone, the fire hydrants are painted to look like little soldiers. The front lawns are well groomed with a gentle slope from the sidewalk to the street, and the trees are magnificent. The large rambling homes are fully restored. When the city was young, this was the neighborhood that people with money lived in. It still is. Several years ago property was sold and a new survey completed. The starting point of all surveys is a marker in the ground that is accepted as accurate. Once set, those starting points are rarely re-checked. If you bought property 100’ due south of a marker, a surveyor would start at the marker and measure 100’ south to establish where your property line began. Since all markers in a city are measured from one central marker, the result is that no matter which marker you start from, the end result should always be the same - unless a mistake was made. Now imagine, you are an owner of one of these beautifully restored homes. There is a knock on your door, and a neighbor is standing there with a new survey in hand. He calmly tells you the original neighborhood was measured from a mistake, and your living room sits on his lot. Every house in the neighborhood was affected. While this could have sent several lawyers' children through college, it didn’t. Something strange happened. The people involve got together and agreed to issue whatever documents were necessary to make it right for their neighbors. Instead of an expensive legal battle, a huge problem was solved by people simply working together to do the right thing. If this kind of cooperation can be found in Topeka KS, there is hope for the rest of the world. Moral – Doing the right thing takes more than just being right. |