He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t have to.
Ezoic
George used to say that a bank is just a building full of promises.
Ezoic
The promise that your money will be there when you need it. The promise that somebody will listen when you need help. The promise that the person behind the glass sees you as a person. Not as your boots. Not as your hat. Not as the dirt on your knees.
People like you.
That’s what George said in kitchens and barns and church basements all over the county in 1967. When he was asking people to trust him with their savings. Farmers and shopkeepers and widows with coffee cans full of money.
Put your money in a bank that’s owned by people like you.
He meant it as a compliment. The highest one he knew.
Fifty-eight years later, a young man in a blue suit said those same three words to me. And he meant them as an insult.
