I’m on the East Coast this week visiting relatives and friends, and doing a little work along the way.  Watching all the July 4th fireworks makes it easy to think about who the "Average American" is. 

Now, in the tech world, it’s easy to forget that the Average American does not have a 130 IQ and make $100k a year.  In fact, most of the young admins and marketing coordinators in these places probably don’t even map to the needs and wants of the "Average American." 

I took a bunch of trains and subways this week, seeing people, and recalibrating my own view of who this Avg American is.  You see a lot of tourists, janitors, cab drivers, and unemployed folks in inner city neighborhoods if you walk a few streets from most train stations and subway stops.

But then today I helped my Aunt deliver lunch to 12 houses, since she is a Meals on Wheels volunteer.  These really are the people you forget about, for the simple reason that you have no way to ever see them.

I didn’t know what to expect as I walked to the front door of recipient #1, who my little card said was a 85 year old with a bad heart.  His door was unlocked and he gratefully commanded me to come in his house and set the lunch next to him.  The TV was on, and the house showed signs of a residence that doesn’t get cleaned very often.  And he was genuinely gracious in his thanks for the meal.  

Other stops during teh day switched between being more or less depressing.  There was a 50ish gentleman who easily weighed 500+ pounds, and I was left to speculate why his mattress and box spring was in his living room.  There was the 70 year old with Parkinsons who seemed physically well-off, but showed the signs of mental struggles, and I tried to figure out why there was a bath tub in his hallway.  Two people failed to answer the door, and I stood with feelings of paranoia and dread that someone was laying on the other side of the door calling for help, but I could not hear.

The whole trip took a couple of hours, and obviously jarred my brain enough that I decided to use space in a marketing and technology blog to discuss it.  So, I guess to attach it to the overall theme, I should say that when we think of who "The Average American" is, we need to make sure we calibrate the scale to keep in mind the people we never see – the poor, the sick, the homebound, the old, the people in mental institutions and the rest of those tucked away in corners of the city where we don’t go.  This "average" person is not a cell phone toting, broadband user sporting an ipod and ripping mp3’s from TorrentBox.

And in case you have 2 hours a month which you are looking to fill up with something rewarding and thought provoking, here’s a link to Meals on Wheels.