It was a lazy, sunny day in late summer in Cordoba Argentina. As the season started drawing to a close, so too it seems did the emotions of the people.
It was somewhere around 5 o’clock. It was Sunday, and people were returning from their free day’s activities. At that time in 1965, I was coming close to completing a year and a half in Argentina as a Mormon missionary. I had become proficient in Spanish during that time and was comfortable conversing with people on the street.
At the time I found myself boarding a city bus to return to my pension (apartment Argentine style) for an early meal. It was crowded inside causing me and my missionary companion to have to stand up. A married couple was sitting on a side seat in front of us. To my surprise the man started making comments to me about being a North American. As usual I responded with equal vigor. We jawed back and forth until he and his wife got off. As they descended the bus’s steps he gave me one last verbal shot.
We sat down on the seat they had vacated. One stop later we got off. We proceeded north one block to where our pension was. To my surprise the couple I had engaged had proceeded south in order to transfer to another bus. We met again and continued our heated discussion. I walked toward him, and as I did he pulled a gun out of his fishing bag. I froze. This wasn’t the first time I had a gun pulled on me. The first time I just walked away from the incident.
This time however I was mad enough to want to hit him, and under normal circumstances I would have prevailed easily. He was shorter and lighter than I was. But at the very last second we both stopped the banter. The mood turned heavy. At the very last moment, I again decided to step to one side to avoid him and walk on. I was glad I did so, and I sensed the other guy did too. An unfortunate and possibly tragic incident had been averted.
I had always been known as an aggressive talker. But there are those dramatic times you learn once and for all you have to hold back. This incident was one of those times for me. Finally, I had learned to discuss in a middle gear. In the years since then, that’s how I’ve tried to conduct my interactions with my children, my wife, my business colleagues, my friends and even shift into low gear when engaging people on the street. For me, this is especially important in these unusually stressful times.