So I was carrying my dry cleaning down the street a few afternoons ago. See when you live in the city, everything tends to involve foot. Taking a cab for the littlest things adds up. Public transportation is as dependable as Amy Winehouse's sobriety and sometimes it's just easier to carry things to places for the view. Unlike growing up in Wisconsin where a mile could feel like "Please God just shoot me in cornfield hell" a mile in the city involves plenty of store window shopping, exercise, and of course, the ever wonderment of people watching.

Anyway, my hands are full, right? I mean, I've got ten shirts to get cleaned and a pair of these really nice pinstriped slacks that I was aiming to wear to a wedding and a few fall sweaters to get pressed. I'm double fisting. I'm on a mission. I've got places to be! My fingers are about to fall off because, um, dude... sweaters are heavy.

I turn the corner and leaning against a brick wall of the neighborhood's best sushi joint is an older homeless guy with a crumpled cardboard sign that reads: "Please, hungry." in black permanent marker. The man's handwriting is beautiful. Seriously. Like he once was a sharp student in middle school with penmanship that always got compliments from teachers. But as everyone whizzed by this guy would say: "Could you spare some change?" and even if people ignored him, he would still say: "Peace." and place his index finger and middle finger in the air to make the famous rabbit ear symbol.

At that exact same time, a little girl(totally seven or eight years old) stops in the front of the man giving the peace sign and says: "What's that?" to her father who is distracted by the grocery bags in his hands.

"Bridgette, come over here!" He races to his daughter who is now starring at the homeless man's hands.

As the father grabs his bags and zips in front of me down the sidewalk with his daughter's hand in his other, I hear the girl start asking questions.

"Dad... what was he doing with his fingers?" As she asks she stares at her fingers trying to make the same rabbit ear peace sign as the homeless guy.

"What? I don't know what you're talking about?" Her dad says annoyed.

"He was doing this!" She says with her little fingers trying to separate just enough to mimic the man's gesture.

"Oh... that means 'peace'."

As I continue to walk behind with my hands full of all these shirts and sweaters I started to remember the first time I learned what that symbol meant. It was in third grade. We were told to use it when we didn't want to fight. It was about the same time as the Gulf War. I remember watching the news at night, right before dinner, where anti-war protesters marched with giant signs and some with 'peace fingers'.

"What does peace mean?" She asks still trying to get her fingers to look right.

"It means... no fighting..."

"Oh! I don't like fighting... right? I hate fighting!" The girl shakes her brown haired head wildly back and forth.

I smile and watch as the dad looks down at his daughter and smiles.

"That's right. You don't like fighting." As the dad says this he takes his hand out of hers and makes a peace sign with his hand.

"Show me how to do that with my fingers!" The little girl begs holding her hand up in front of her face."

In that moment, the dad puts down his grocery bags and stopps his hurried walk in the middle of the sidewalk. As I pass around them, I turn and see the little girl's hand in the shape of a peace sign and a smile on her face. The dad then picks up his bags as the girl walks down the street with her little fingers in a peace sign.

It seems like our hands are always full. Whether it's with the physical stuff like grocery bags and dry cleaning or it's with the bigger stuff, like the responsibility of taking a second and stopping in a crazy fast paced world to teach a little someone a big something that maybe we as adults too often forget can even still exist.