26

I’m still grateful to those guys.  Even though I never got their names.  They came along at the right time-just when we needed them.

The previous summer, Stuart and I had moved to Western New York from the much milder town of Corvallis Oregon, and the harshness of our new surroundings in winter caught us off guard.  A snowy road-one late afternoon, a bully of another driver-right on our tail as we were returning home from a neighboring village, and lack of proper traction devices spelled disaster as we skidded off the road into a deep bank of snow.  (And to our shock and dismay, the bully driver kept right on going!)  I remember the panic I felt at the seemingly hopeless state of our situation.

And then they showed up.  Half a dozen of the toughest looking young men I’d ever seen, and my first reaction, I’m ashamed to admit, was that in addition to being stranded, we were now going to be robbed.  Oh was I ever wrong.  Scrambling out of a big old beat up truck, and armed with chains and able bodies, those dear boys proceeded to push and pull us out of the snow bank.  They made sure we were ok and fit to travel again, all the while shrugging off our profuse thanks, and then then they were gone. 

While the kindness of these fellows and what they did for us could be written off as simply the right and decent thing to do, given the gravity of our situation, still, it was a choice they made-to do good, instead of letting the opportunity go by. And it also reinforced my belief that when it comes right down to it, for the most part, we want to help one another-in fact, we can’t help ourselves.

Random acts of kindness. The big ones as well as the small ones.  Moments when the light of humanity shines the brightest.

It’s what the world needs more of, so desperately, right now.