A little while back, I heard someone use the phrase “this whole and broken world.” Twice in recent times, I’ve had verbal back-and-forths that brought those words to life.

Last March I was in Florida, staying at a rental, right on the relatively remote WeekiWachee River. The river has alligators and, as advised on a sign right near where we were staying, at least one “water moccasin breeding ground.” The knowledge of both of these presences in the river made for focused use of the kayaks that came with the rental.

I’d taken a walk down a dirt road and was heading back to my place. Two younger guys, whose truck told me they worked for a local utility company, were also walking on the road, and we joined up. They asked me where I was staying in the way that locals do to vacationers everywhere, and I told them.

Then they asked me where I was from. I answered, as I often do when I’m out-of-state, “Massachusetts, but people can’t tell because I don’t have a Boston accent.” One of them looked at me with a confrontational, flat smile, and said, “I bet you’re glad about that.”

I felt his gibe went beyond the centuries-old Northerner/Southerner divide, that it had to do specifically with Massachusetts having the same national reputation for being on the left politically as Mississippi or, increasingly, that part of Florida does for being on the right. What I heard in what he said was I should be glad to travel around politically incognito in those parts, and not invite hostility. As I look back on it, I could have told myself, or acted as if, he was talking about a sports rivalry, and tried to deflect the whole thing, but sports was not what I saw in his look or heard in his voice.

It was probably a wonderful opportunity to “transcend perceived divisions,” to lift us both out of any quicksand of close-mindedness we’d walked ourselves into, but right at that moment, paddling amidst the alligators and snakes seemed more appealing to me. I decided I wasn’t going to deny, affirm, or explain anything. So I looked at him and made a slight backward nod with my head while giving him my own hollow smile that said, “I hear ya.”

I don’t remember if we spoke any further as we completed the short walk back to their truck. It felt like a dent had been put in our conversation. Before we parted, we said “so longs,” somewhere between amicably and perfunctorily.

I found myself thinking our little chat on that little dirt road might not have taken the same course, been similarly politicized, maybe six or seven years ago, but that’s where we are now in our whole and broken world.

Now I switch the scene to Cape Cod, where I continue to prove myself a privileged old man by staying a week each September (off-season rates) on Mid Cape. Our rental is near a flat, paved road that runs parallel and near to the beach, and on days I don’t go to the Cape Cod Rail Trail, I like to ride back and forth on that beach road and get some exercise, sunshine and views of the ocean.

One day when I was doing this back and forth riding, it was blustery enough so that when I was pedaling against the wind, it felt like I was climbing a small mountain. A guy who looked to be about my age was walking back and forth, probably looking for the same benefits I was.

The first time we passed each other going in opposite directions, I had the wind behind me, and he said, “It’s a lot easier going with the wind, isn’t it?” And I said, “You’re telling me.” The next time we passed each other, I was straining against the wind, and he said, “You’ve got to find a way to bike with the wind at your back all the time.” I said, “That’s the story of my life.” And he said, “Yeah, don’t I know it.” Then we shared a chuckle, a little self-deprecation mixed in with a little cracker-barrel philosophy.

You could call our brief exchange a joint attempt at clever quipping, or you could call it “connection,” but whatever you call it, I was left feeling good about it.

As many readers might know, Ernest Hemingway had a prose style I’ve seen described as “simple,” “terse,” and “understated.” He said in reference to his style of writing, “The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.” This belief that seven-eighths of the meaning of words can be below the surface is called the “Iceberg Theory of Writing.” It could be said my dialogue with that fellow on the beach road adhered to an “Iceberg Theory of Conversation.” Seven-eighths of what we were saying about the days and ways and lived-to understandings of our three score and ten-plus years lay below the surface.

Recently I heard someone say, “When I find myself bumping against people, it’s time to widen the road.” That road on Cape Cod was just right for that contemporary of mine and me. Maybe those young guys from WeekiWachee and I can find a way to widen ours.

Amherst resident Richard McCarthy, a longtime columnist at the Springfield Republican, writes a monthly column for the Gazette.

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