[W]ho are you to judge your neighbor?
—James 4:12
In Durham, North Carolina, he was known as the “Street Fiddler.” He could do it all: Bach, Mozart, Hank Williams, Texas swing. His name was Dave, but only a few old-timers knew that.
Hardly anyone knew that the “Street Fiddler” spoke several languages, was a graduate of Duke University, and a former journalist with encyclopedic knowledge.
He was judged by his appearance—a bespectacled, disheveled old man with wild gray hair, who staked out a spot on Ninth Street in Durham, bent over his violin and rarely spoke.
Dave fought mental illness for much of his life and never had a steady job after he turned thirty.
The “Street Fiddler”—David McKnight—died January 17, 2017, at age 69. Brain tumor.
Judging others doesn’t define them.
It defines me.