Changing Gears: Diversity flavors friendship

These days, we hear a lot about diversity -- in employment, in college admissions, in club membership and in school enrollment. There is racial diversity as well as cultural and religious diversity. Some of it is mandated by government regulations and not always without dispute.

With all this emphasis on diversity, perhaps it's not so unusual to conclude that there has been a natural increase in the diversity of our circle of friends.

When I look back at various stages of my life, I begin to realize that much of this diversity started when we moved to Florida 26 years ago.

I was 51 at the time. I had worked for 25 years at the Des Moines Tribune and had grown up with the staff. I was somewhat surprised when I came to work for the St. Petersburg Times to find a staff much younger than the one I left in Iowa.

Even though I was a beginner at the Times, I was already an old-timer in the newsroom. In that sense, I may have been a pioneer in newsroom diversification, although there were many facets of it to come.

Because we were new in town, it was natural that most of the friends we made were co-workers. Almost without exception, those friends were my juniors.

As for my wife, a former teacher, she did not continue that career here, but in addition to sharing some of my friends, she was finding her own. First it was through church, where she met people from various parts of the country, and then through volunteer work.

One of her early acquaintances was Sister Margaret Freeman of the St. Petersburg Free Clinic. It was not long before the clinic had a new volunteer. And her clinic friends became mine, too.

So we were well on the way, with no special effort, to building a circle of friends that was diverse in many ways: culturally, ethnically and even geographically. And the circle has continued to expand. One of our friends at the Times led my wife to yoga classes. There she made more friends, again some of whom she shared with me.

Then there was our decision to learn tai chi. The circle of friends broadened again to include people of unusual backgrounds, with representatives from every age group.

Although tai chi classes tend to be made up of younger people, we have shared lessons with some in their 80s and 90s. Just last year we were invited to join a tai chi class being taught at a St. Petersburg retirement home. Perhaps an even greater push in diversity has come from the exercise program at Bayfront Medical Center, which we have been a part of for 15 years. There we find friends of all ages, races, religious backgrounds and with a variety of physical conditions.

Among our young friends were several associated with Eckerd College's program to teach English to foreign students. Again, we benefited and expanded our circle by becoming associated with young students from different cultures.

As we look back at the friends we have made and consider how and under what circumstances those friendships were established, we must credit diversity as the springboard for these friendships.

Meanwhile, there was our family. As we grew older, so did our five children, who married, and brought racial diversity to our family. Our grandchildren, ranging in age from 4 to 26, keep diversity very much a part of our lives.

So it seems that as you grow older and, one hopes, wiser, diversity will occur in all phases of your life. A nudge from the government probably helps in the form of mandatory regulations. But in our society, it appears that diversity is going to happen, one way or another. And aren't we glad that it does?

- Write to Jay Horning in care of Seniority, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731; or send e-mail to jayhorning@aol.com.

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