The Stranger from Texas

In Brazil there was a seven-mile or ten-mile race. I was tired, exhausted, since I had run eight or nine miles that morning, so I didn't join.
 
I saw a man with a dog near the start of the race and I said to him, "Excuse me, can you tell me how many miles they are going to run? I see there is going to be a race."
 
The man said, "I don't understand your English!" in a very abrupt way.
 
Immediately I saw that he was an American. I asked, "Where do you come from?"
 
He answered, "I come from Texas. Where do you come from?"
 
I said, "I come from New York."
 
He said, "Now I understand your English. Ask me again."
 
When I asked him, he said, "I am also a stranger, like you."
 
-1 June 1981 
 
 
 
[Source: "The Stranger from Texas" in Sri Chinmoy,  Run and Become, Become and Run, Part 6, Agni Press/Aum Publications, Jamaica, New York, 1981.]