You’ve heard it said, “If you don’t mind, it does not matter.” Well, truth is everything matters ... everything, whether you mind or not.

Soaring at 500 miles per hour nearly 25,000 feet above the planet, everything down below looks so peaceful, so serene, so right. It seems sometimes that the farther away we get from the ground, the better things appear to be. That’s a phenomenon that goes beyond physicality and reaches into the mind, affecting our behavior and impacting us and others in ways we may not even be aware of.

Traveling back home from the sunshine state after a brief respite filled with more angst and stresses I had not planned on encountering, I was struck by the simple, but profound realization that distance from discomfort matters; the farther away the pain, the better.

It’s true, think about it. When most of us see trouble coming we do everything we can to avoid it. We seek pleasure, beauty and satisfaction, not pain and suffering. In fact when we do encounter pain and suffering, some of us will, if we can, sue whoever caused it and try to make them pay us as much money as possible.

But there are others, a lot of others who are attracted to the trouble, the pain and the suffering, they run toward it, desperately trying to stop it, and in most cases they do it because they care, because it matters.

I have met and stood up with, sat in with, marched side by side with, and even lay down on sandy beaches with many such people of both kinds in my life time.

During one extremely brief moment recently I lay in the on the beach in the warm glow of the sun surrounded by thousands of people who, like me were trying not to care about anything for a while. We let the soft warm ocean breeze, the sound of the rolling waves, and the constant songs of the ever present seagulls carry us away to that place in our minds where nothing, absolutely nothing in the world matters; our safe inner harbor of peace.

It was but a brief moment, just long enough for my mind to wander back to other things that matter more than me.

I thought about a very dear friend who passed away last week. I guess I have reached the age my father was at when he moved his best suit closer to the front of his closet. He said there comes a point in your life when the preceding generation of family and friends begin to leave, and you start attending more funerals than ever before. “Its part of life” he said.

One of those who ran toward the pain and suffering of others, who never willingly walked away from life’s challenges, is gone.

Sandy Perry died last week.

I had sat with him outside the now closed Community Center last summer while we talked candidly as usual about Niagara Falls and his memories of her once glorious past as well as its challenges ahead.

Born July 24, 1926, in Hamlin, N.C., he served in the U.S. Army as a Medical Corpsman and a member of the band towards the end of WWII and graduated from Syracuse University under the GI Bill, continuing his studies at Columbia University, and Niagara University.

A lifetime member of the NAACP, he never hesitated use his education, training and experience to try to help make things better for his family and his community, particularly here in this city.

Married to Gertrude Lenora Wooddruff in October 1957 with whom he has two children, Anne Noel Perry, a renowned architect, and a son, famed Buffalo attorney Adam W. Perry, Esq. and later, in 1994 to Irene Deganhartt of Ludwishafen Germany in 1994. He left the U.S. in 1988 to work with the Armed Forces Family Advocacy program in England and in Germany.

But his work with community organizations including the United Way and the Niagara Community Center is his greatest contribution to this city. Sandy Perry never lost sight of his commitment to trying to make things better by running toward the problems and challenges instead of running away from them.

Even after he left the country to be work for the Army and the Air Force, Sandy Perry never forgot Niagara Falls. He came back every year to meet with old friends, to urge them on just as he did that day last summer when he looked around and saw opportunities for change in the midst of what others might see as nothing more than pain and suffering.

Most striking to me was his response to a question I asked him about what he saw here and how it compared to his life in Europe. He said that in spite of the challenges, Niagara Falls could have a brighter future if more of her own people could see the city’s potential from a different perspective.

Sandy saw things from a global view. He said most people who know anything at all about Niagara Falls, do not see it the way the city’s own residents see it; the rest of the world sees Niagara as a beautiful place, a place they want to come and visit, enjoy and explore.

He said it is only when you get close, and listen to some of the folk who live here in the neighborhoods and around the nagging naysayers that the place begins to look as bad as we think it is.

“Pot holes are not your biggest problem, your attitude and self image is.”

Sandy suggested that we take another look at ourselves; try to see Niagara for what it truly is today as well as what it can be tomorrow. See it from the point of view of the rest of the world. Face the real challenges, “run toward the problems not away from them and address them head on,” he said, “it matters” and I fully agree.

A memorial service will be held on a date to be announced later this year according to his daughter Anne.

Contact Bill at: bill.bradberry@yahoo.com.