There are good people everywhere
Serendipity
I always like the little heart-warming, feel-good stories that pop up in the media occasionally.
You may have heard this one, too, about the man (we’ll call him Frank) driving some distance t across Wisconsin to attend a funeral when he had car trouble in a really small town. He asked around about getting his car fixed so he could make it to the funeral on time, and he was directed to a local mechanic (we’ll call him Joe) who everyone relied on for his skills in repairing vehicles.
After checking it out, Joe said he was sure he could fix it, but it would take three hours. That meant Frank would be too late for the funeral. So, much to Frank’s amazement, Joe simply reached in his pocket for the keys to his own pickup and told Frank to take it to get to the funeral. “By the time you get back, I’ll have your car fixed,” Joe said.
So Frank went on his way down the road in the borrowed vehicle, Joe fixed the car, and it worked out for everyone. It turns out that Joe has helped people out like that for plenty of times over the years.
That sounds like Hamilton County. Sometimes help appears almost before anyone knows it’s needed. It happened to me recently.
Sometime this winter the railing on one end of my deck blew over. Nothing was broken or damaged. The bolts and braces just gave up. That end of the railing just laid over on the deck, looking like no one cared about it.
I asked my neighbor a few weeks back if he would help me with it when the weather improved. So during our three-day spring last week, we decided it was a good opportunity but didn’t set a firm time. The next day as I drove into my driveway, I glanced the way of the deck, and there was the end railing sitting up, attached proudly right where it should be. And I did nothing to help with the project because I wasn’t home.
Later, when I asked him why he did that all by himself, my neighbor just looked at me with a smile and a shrug. “Why wouldn’t I help you?” he asked.
Now, it’s wonderful to live in a place where it’s simply a natural habit to treat others like this. But I don’t believe we have a corner on that type of behavior. Thirty years ago when my late brother was terminally ill in Chicago, his friends — who we so easily put in the category of cold, self-centered city folks — stepped up over and over again with kindness, compassion, and strength for my parents while he was hospitalized for weeks in the city.
That’s when I learned there are good folks everywhere.