Herb Gardner's most famous play is "A Thousand Clowns."  One of his other plays which only lasted about three weeks on Broadway was entitled, "The Goodbye People."  There's a marvelous scene in that play where the lead character is trying to get financial help for his failing business.  He calls his friends one after the other.  As soon as they discover what he's after they grow very cagey. They back off, get cool, and say goodbye.  After several such goodbyes, he says to one of them, "You're so much better at saying goodbye than hello.  You don't want to get involved.  You open the door just a chink.  But when you say goodbye, you're warm and palsy.”

Much of the time, we're the goodbye people - fending off intruders from our privacy.  We don't want people to get too close.  What the world needs, however, is not people who are good at saying goodbye.  We need hello people.  People who will break through the narrowness of their own fears and open their hearts and homes to others - even strangers.