God says welcome the stranger; JD Vance says go away

When I was growing up, we lived next door to a group home for adults with disabilities. There were probably 15 people living there, not including the old couple who housed them.

Some of the residents paced, some of them sat and rocked endlessly on the porch. Some of them wobbled and scuffed their feet when they walked, and others leered and rolled their eyes at passers-by. They were noisy occasionally, but mostly, they were peaceful, if odd.

I hated living next to them. They were just so different. I was embarrassed when friends came over, and I especially hated it when my mother invited one of them into our house. Two of the residents, in particular, would come by a lot.

One who came often was Bill, a tall, lanky man with no teeth and a massive underbite, his cartoonishly bent legs flapping in old-fashioned trousers. He didn’t say much, but he liked to hang around the kitchen or the porch, and my mother would let him come and go as he liked while she was home. I hated it when he came over, because he was just so different. 

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