Two Beers and Two Bottles Uncommon Act of Kindness told by David Molina

 

Two Beers and Two Bottles 

I flew into Milan on a business trip. At the time, I worked for a pharmaceutical and I had a client in a small town in northeast Italy called Vicenza. I spent a day in Milan to get over the jet lag and bought a train ticket to Vicenza. The next day in the afternoon I go to the train station for the two hour trip.

As soon as I get on the train, the railroad goes on strike. So I’m sitting on the train and I ask the conductor how long would the strike last - because I noticed a number of people getting off the train, and I wanted to know whether I should too. 

As you may know, Italians typically never answer the question directly. The conductor says, “How long? About two beers. If it’s longer than that you’ll want to get off.” So I wait a couple of beers. Sure enough the strike is over, but it is getting a bit late. After a two-hour ride, the train rolls into the station at Vicenza. By now it’s dark, and I am not sure where exactly the hotel is. However, as I step out on the street, there is a taxi. 

I ask the cab driver if he can take me to the hotel. The cab driver is impeccably dressed, with a cap on his head - everyone has a profession and they all dress well. He says “Yes Sir!” in his best American English. He opens the trunk, and loads my suitcase. He opens the door for me, and I get in the car. I am relieved, because I am here, I had my two beers, and it’s been a long day.

So he drives one block - about six hundred feet. Maybe less than six hundred feet. He opens the door, and he is right in front of my hotel. I am laughing to myself, and he is not laughing at all. He is straight-faced and very serious. He opens the trunk, carries my bags to the lobby. I can’t remember how many lira it was, but probably the equivalent of eight dollars…to go six hundred feet. So I am laughing, and I give him a nice tip. He knew where the hotel was, and he was completely professional about it all. 

I spend a couple days working with my client. There is a restaurant not far from the train station. I was told it was a nice place, so I walk in. The waiter seats me at a table. I had not said a word to him, yet he says, “And what would you like for dinner tonight?” in English. I am wondering how he knows I am American, I had not said a single word. So I ask him how he knows I am an American?  The waiter points to a table across the restaurant where three guys are in corner,  sitting around a table, laughing. The waiter says, “Those taxi drivers are talking about you.”

I see my taxi driver over there with two other taxi driver friends, who are giving me the side eye, looking at me, undoubtedly the subject of their amusement. There is no one else in the restaurant besides me and the three taxi drivers. I tell the waiter, “Oh, now I understand!” 

I am half Italian, so I ordered my food in half Italian. The waiter was very good about helping me with the other half of Italian that I had somehow missed. The waiter and I hit it off pretty well, however now I noticed the three guys are now laughing at my bad Italian. The waiter asked me where I was from, and we had some nice conversation. It was a slow Wednesday night and nothing else was going on in the restaurant other than the taxi drivers over in the corner. 

The food is very good - fresh fish, pasta, a nice glass of wine. When the waiter comes to me I ask him to put two bottles of wine on my tab, and take them over to the taxi drivers’ table. And I ask the waiter to tell them it was from me. 

When the bottles arrive the three guys are looking over at me, smiling and nodding their heads, probably thinking “He’s not so bad.  Dumb, maybe, but not bad.” After I am done with my meal, I go over to their table, and they are laughing and enjoying the wine. I nod to the driver who charged me $8 for a six hundred foot ride.

So I say to his two friends, “This is the best driver in all of Vicenza!” I am dramatic, emphasizing all of Vicenza with broad arm movement. So you can see he is puffing up his chest among his buddies, also saying “Yes, I am the best driver in all of Vicenza!” So I thank him, turn around to leave. My friend - the best taxi driver in all of Vicenza - calls out, “Americano, wait - if you need a ride tomorrow to the train station….you’ll give me a call, won’t you?”

Now we are all laughing, and I turn around and say “Si si, mil gratia.!” 

Actually, the next morning, I walked the six hundred feet myself.

When I told my story to my Italian clients, they laughed so hard they cried. But you just had to laugh.That was all you could do.  That story, and the entertainment it brought were well worth he two bottles of wine, and the $8 taxi ride.

A Common Act of Kindness Brian Brown

                                                 A Common Act of Kindness

Near the small town where I grew up in the Mojave Desert is Otto’s Mountain. It is a large block of economically useless igneous rock, shot through with occasional veins of quartz. It is a big thing, several miles around and perhaps a thousand feet higher than the surrounding terrain. It’s a very common mountain, except for its’ story. Otto’s story.

     Otto was a German who had immigrated to the U.S. after World War I. He had fought for the Kaisers army then, and when World War II broke out he attempted to enlist and fight for his new home, the U.S.A. He said he was rejected because he was too old , but perhaps his previous life in Germany also had something to do with it. In the 1950’s he worked for several years as a custodian on oil rigs off of Long Beach Harbor. The local story was that he had been a meticulous, orderly cleaner, and eventually as a reward this somehow led to him being given title to, or rights somehow to go dig for gold in this unremarkable mountain in the middle of nowhere in the barren Mojave. The story never quite made sense to me even as a kid, but it was what it was. 

     He was small and  wiry, with a perennial dark tan, shocking blue eyes and a mop  of snow white hair.  He gave himself literal bowl haircuts from time to time, which made him look like an escapee from a Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale story. But most of all, he was happy, almost joyful each time I saw him. 

     He did not drive, and did not own a vehicle. Once a week, on Saturdays, he would push an empty wheelbarrow into town, a journey that was nearly two miles over the raw desert. In and out of sandy washes, between the scrub brush, rocks, and other obstacles between his home in the mountain and the center of town, where my family owned the only grocery store for 60 miles in any direction. He would load up his wheelbarrow with groceries and supplies, check for his mail, and often have a chat with my father. Up until the early 1960’s Dad would order him mining supplies, including dynamite, blasting caps and fuses, through his connections in the mining world. Explosives would show up on the grocery truck from time to time, and they would be stored in a cool warehouse for Otto until his next trip to town. Explosives were just another tool, until the social turmoil of the 1960’s eventually put an end to that. 

     He would also buy hard candies at our store, and any of the handful of children who lived in the town would get a piece of candy from Otto if they happened to show up early at opening time, around 8:00 a.m. this soon became a ritual, and most of the population of our two room school house would happen to be hanging around the market early on Saturday mornings. Some of us would also follow him along his well worn trail towards his mountain, chatting with this amiable little man with the funny accent. It was completely harmless, but eventually some parents expressed a concern, and so Otto switched his weekly trip to Fridays, when we were all trapped in school. 

         Otto was known by all and universally liked by everyone. When I began to drive, around the eighth grade, we would occasionally bounce our home made jalopy dune buggies up the road to his cave for a visit. He remembered our names, and would welcome us into his home. Depending upon the time of year we would either sit outside on simple wooden benches made of mining timbers, or we would retreat to the coolness of his indoor cave, a tunnel that went back into the mountain 40 feet or more and then widened into a simple room.  There was a cot, a simple table and a couple of more benches made from the rough cut mining lumber. He was set up to live either indoors or outdoors or both, depending upon the time of year and the temperature and weather. His camp was fastidious, though there was no one else there to impress. It was just who he was. Once he made us lemonade, squeezing the juice into glasses of water he poured from a glass gallon jug wrapped in burlap, adding sugar as he told us tales of his earlier life.  We sat in front of his cave home, and listened to stories about World War I, his travels to the south Pacific, and an Island where he said “ The girls wore grass skirts and nothing else “, with a chuckle. Our 13 year old minds ran wild; this was high adventure, and slightly scandalous to boot.  

    There was no high school in the town, and so I was sent away to a Catholic Boys School in Southern California, and then eventually I would go to college in Colorado. At some point on a trip home I was told that Otto had grown to old to push his wheelbarrow into town.  A local woman, Lois, had taken it upon her self to go up to his cave in the mountain at least once a week to take him groceries and check on him. No agency paid her to do it; it was just something that needed to be done in our little community and so she did it. She would bounce her pick up truck up the crude road, and take him the daily papers for every day for the previous week, so he could keep up on the worldly happenings. Sometimes she would bring him into town with her, and he would sit in her truck in front of our little market for an hour or so, chatting with anyone who passed by that knew him. The last time I saw Otto he was in that truck, sitting contentedly and enjoying the human company. I was in college, he remembered my name and wanted to know how my studies were going. I stood by the truck and chatted with him for a while, a smiling, congenial old man who seemed content with his life.

     Lois did this for a year or more, until it became evident that Otto could no longer live alone. Then, she moved him into an ancient, decrepit but clean little motel  that her grandmother owned and still operated. For the last months of his life they checked on him in his little cabin, helping him as needed. When he died peacefully there, she had him cremated and quietly took his ashes back to his mining camp and spread his ashes there. 

    When I returned home from college one particular semester break I learned that Otto had died, and how Lois had cared for him in his last days. I don’t know if any money ever changed hands; if it did, it must have been a very modest amount. Lois had cared for him, a man alone with no family dying in a country not his own. But he had been a good man, a good person, and she saw that, and so she had taken it upon herself to do what needed doing. No governmental entities involved, no welfare issues, just one person doing right to another.

     I don’t know if their is a deity present in our universe; I suspect not, but we all get our own opinion on that. If there is, I think it would look at this simple story and say, there, humans, that is what I want from you. Forget all the nonsense, the insane gyrations to acquire money and fame and power. Just be good to each other. You all know what that means, and you should recognize when an opportunity to do so comes your way. Is this too much to ask? 

    Two simple people in a tiny town, one making an honorable living through his own labors, and another recognizing the good in him and quietly responding to it.That may be about as good as it gets, or as good as we can wish for. A common act of kindness.  

The Black Coat by Don Taco

The Black Coat

Don Taco

  After graduating from high school, in 1971, I continued working through the summer, to put a few dollars in my pocket before heading off to college in Los Angeles. I worked at MacDonalds. Still to this day the worst job I ever had. I did once again venture into food service one year, but it was at a friendly deli, not at a place with deep fat fryers and surly customers in a hurry. In my pile of mementos, I have a note that was pinned to my timecard one day, late that summer, from the MacDonald's franchise owner himself, not from the manager. It said, "Please get your hair cut." I didn't, of course, knowing that I wouldn't be there even a week or two longer anyway. As a matter of fact, I never cut it again. I don't know what it has cost you to keep your hair neat and trimmed all these five decades, but all those pennies are still in my pocket. It was an early lesson, though, about slumlords and robber barons, and other stereotypes that were supposed to only live in the folk and protest songs of the twenties that I was exploring and learning as long ago as that. "The Man" had such a lack of respect for his peons that he couldn't be bothered to actually speak to them. He just paper-clipped a note to the timecard. I wonder if he resented spending the cost of a paperclip to preserve his rigid image of how we should look. My hair wasn't long enough to touch my ears. But it wasn't short enough for him. 

  That has nothing to do with the black coat, though.

  The last week or two of the summer, before college started, was my vacation. And I decided to visit San Francisco, a popular tourist destination for the youth of America in those late '60s and early '70s years, much hyped in the media of those times. There was actually far more going on there than I was aware of or clued in on, but I had heard enough to imagine that I should go and take a peek. All my plan was, though, was to drive around it a bit and see what things looked like, and then putter back home. For me, it was the journey, not the destination. The drive up and back, the sleeping out under the stars, the vistas and oddities and sights to be discovered along the way were far more important than the city itself, or what was happening there.

  Much earlier that year, I had come across and purchased a Yamaha 100, which could be described as a motorcycle if you were feeling generous. We tended to describe it as a sewing machine with turn signals. I had done enough repairs for it to be dependable, and I was well aware of how much better it was than having nothing. I'm the oldest of six. Our father had died of cancer. We were all bright and involved and busy, and though it was a godsend to now have two drivers, we still only had one car. The continuous and convoluted logistics of getting everyone where they needed to be were taxing. That extra option of the second, though limited, pair of wheels was valuable far beyond the cost. 

  But that bike wasn't street legal for the freeways. Too underpowered. So my trip was planned along the byways and backroads, most of them along the coast itself. There were places where I had to take my chances on a stretch of freeway, but for the most part, I was chugging along at a comfortable pace out in the scenery, instead of racing along with the knot of traffic that wanted to be there already.

  Which was great! I got to see things, and meet people the whole trip, and could stop anywhere that caught my eye. I wasn't in a hurry. In fact, I would only drive about fifty miles at a stretch, and then stop for half an hour or so, someplace interesting, and let the motor cool down. That bike wasn't built for long distance travel, and I wanted it to have every chance at surviving. I'd stop at a little out-of-the-way market, or city park, or mom-and-pop shop, look around, and chat with people. Buy a coffee, or an apple. Ask people what I might miss nearby that I really should see. People enjoy giving advice. I got directions to a great many gardens and waterfalls, anomalies and museums, vistas and rock formations, and the like, and I visited quite a few of them, because I had nothing but time.

  At one point, I was traveling along a hilly stretch of coast road, and high winds had come up, working against me. I tucked in behind a motorhome and drafted him, like race car drivers do. Somewhat dangerous, and a bit frightening, but I was moving about thirty miles per hour faster than I had been when out in the wind. In fact, about five mph faster than my top speed under ordinary circumstances. The man driving noticed I was back there, grasped why, and was very cautious about his braking, and signalled his intentions well in advance, so I wasn't at much risk. It was fun. At one small town we passed through, he stopped at a shopping center, and we chatted, and he and I and his wife went in and got ice cream cones. And I dropped mine on the asphalt, felt like a fool, and had to go back in and buy a second one. I wasted a precious nickel. Farther up the road, our paths diverged, and I waved my thanks. That part of the trip was the only time I went longer than fifty miles without stopping. I wanted to take advantage of the advantage he was offering me.

  That also has nothing to do with the black coat.

  At some point in the trip, I was stopped at a turn-out looking down over the ocean. Cars were passing slowly, because of the hill and the tight curve, and some were stopping briefly to enjoy the view. One old fellow in a motorhome had set up for the day, though, and was having a garage sale. No garage, just the sale. He had signs out, and had laid out his wares on tarps and blankets, and settled back with a book in his lawn chair to see what he might sell. I thought it was oddly funny. I looked over his goods, of course, but there wasn't anything I needed or wanted, and I had no way to carry it anyway. My bike had nothing even pretending to be saddlebags, and what little space on the seat wasn't occupied by me was taken up by my sleeping bag, with some few clothes and a flashlight rolled up in it. 

  We got to talking, of course, and like most of the folks I met, he asked where I was headed, and I explained about my trip plans. And he looked at me as if I was nuts, and asked me what the hell I was going to do if it rained? And I said that if it rained, I was going to get wet. I was very nonchalant.

  I hadn't even considered rain or bad weather. It was high summer in Southern California, and there was no real risk of being rained on. And I could always stop someplace with an awning, and outwait it. But this man seemed to think I was out of my mind and taking an unacceptable risk, and he went over to his pile of goods and pulled out a black coat, some kind of rubberized fake leather, with some paint stains on it. And he insisted that I accept the coat as a gift. So I did.

  But first, he took the coat, and went through his storage, and found some kind of solvent and a rag. Gasoline or kerosene or paint thinner, I don't remember what it was, but even with some scrubbing, it didn't have any real effect on dried latex paint, and so the black coat still had white paint splotched on it when he handed it to me. He seemed embarrassed about that.

  For me, it was an eye-opening glimpse into human nature. That coat was clean enough to sell, but it wasn't clean enough to give away. Humans are funny.

  Now it's about the black coat, but this isn't the important part yet.

  That coat was decently warm, but what it was quite good at was bad wet weather. It stayed dry. I didn't wear it for fashionable trips around town, but I often wore it on hitchhiking excursions. 

  Time passed, and I had moved north to Isla Vista, the college ghetto at the campus about ten miles north of Santa Barbara. At that time Highway 101 still passed through downtown, one of those small-town bottlenecks that choked traffic and angered long distance drivers. This afforded the hithchikers a great place to stand and be seen. But, the locals knew that anyone headed back to campus wouldn't go that way. Instead of walking west to that spot on the road, you'd head north to an exit farther along, but where the savvy traffic went. There was lots of traffic back to the campus, and lots of hitchhikers taking advantage of it. Most folks kept a folded up piece of paper in their pocket when they went downtown. In big black felt marker letters, it said SB on one side and IV on the other, and it was immediatley obvious to the drivers that you were going where they were, and not passing through on the way to more distant destinations. You might see a dozen or more folks waiting there, but shortly they would have all gotten a ride. There was etiquette. You got in the queue, chatted with your neighbors, and waited your turn.

  Now, one day, I had arrived at that freeway entrance, headed home. It was late on a very cool day, as the sun was setting, and the temperature dropping fast, as it can along the Pacific Ocean. I happened to be wearing the black coat. I might have been on the last leg of a trip from Los Angeles, where I would have worn that coat, or I might have just grabbed it and gone downtown. I don't remember. 

  While waiting, I spoke with the young man near me. And he had a sad tale to tell. One to make you angry. He had left Texas three days ago, and was making very good time, and been in San Diego that morning. He went into the restroom at a gas station they stopped to fill up at, and while he was relieving himself, the driver took off, with his backpack, clothes, food, other belongings, and his guitar all still in the back of the pickup truck. The guy ripped him off.

  The loss of a small pack full of gear and a sleeping bag isn't major, but the theft of a guitar is inexcusable. What was really starting to get to the guy at the moment, though, was the lack of a coat.

  He was headed to Santa Clara, where he had a friend, who could help him regroup, and contact home for funds, but his luck had clearly run low, and he wasn't making good time any longer. And it was getting dark and cold.

  Before too long, the line had cleared, and someone stopped who was headed back to campus, and I asked him to wait a second, ran back to the guy, pulled off the black coat, and handed it to him. He couldn't believe it. And he didn't want to accept it. He told me that I couldn't give him my coat. And I told him that I certainly could. I said I was ten miles from home, I had a ride home, the coat had been given to me when I didn't need it, and it was my turn to pass it on to someone who did need it. He was still protesting as I ran over to the waiting car and jumped in. I yelled back at him that his turn to help someone would come along.

  I never saw him again, of course.

  I wonder where that black coat is now.

Uncommon Kindness The Power of One by Paul Delgado

 Uncommon Kindness

The Power of One

About eight years ago, my wife and I moved back from the Philippines. After twenty years in the aerospace industry living overseas, it was good to be home and close to the kids and grandkids.

Upon my return, I contemplated retiring, but was asked to head up an Aerostructures Division in San Diego. I decided to take the opportunity and it turned out to be a great decision as my new team was fabulous. 

Anyways, that first Christmas home, an industrial engineer, Sam, who worked on manufacturing improvements at the plant stopped by my office. 

He explained that every holiday season he collected clothes for the homeless and asked me if he could place a box in the lobby for employees to drop off any clothes they would like to donate. 

He went on to explain that he would take the clothes to the various homeless encampments around our area and distribute them to the needy.

I agreed and commended him on his efforts. 

When I got home, I told my wife of Sam’s efforts, and the following day she showed up at the plant with four dozen new socks she purchased at Target. 

As she wisely said, “Everyone deserves a new pair of socks for Christmas!”

Putting them in the box, along with the clothes from our employees, Sam was delighted. He said, “I’ll be taking the clothes this weekend and distribute.”

The following Monday, Sam, distraught, came into my office

I asked him what was wrong, and he said “Sadly, I have to report it looks like one of our employees stole the brand new socks that Mrs. Delgado donated. 

“We don’t know who, but I am really upset someone would do such a thing.”

I told him unfortunately these things happen and not to worry. I called my wife who replaced them right away.

On Christmas Eve, armed with the bundle of new socks, Sam set out again to distribute them.

A couple of days later and back at work. I asked Sam to report out at our weekly all hands meeting and let everyone know the outcome of his kind act of generosity.

Sam humbly stepped up to the podium and explained the outcome of his efforts in distributing the clothing. When it came to the socks, his words brought tears to the assembled workforce.

He said, “I don’t know which one of you stole the socks, but when I distributed them to these poor homeless people who have nothing, they were so grateful.”

Sam choked up and then said, ”I was down to the last pair of new socks and I stopped at a tent of a very elderly man. I began to hand him the last pair and wish him a Merry Christmas.

The old man, shook his head and then pointed to a pathetic hovel a few tents away and said,

“Thank you and Merry Christmas, but please give them to that guy, he is in much worse shape than me.”

There was a stunned silence on the factory floor as all hands took in his words.

Sam then quietly said…”I don’t know who in this plant took the socks, but I hope you needed them more than he did.”

What Goes Around Den Watson

What Goes Around

   It’s 1962 and 2:30 AM on a dark deserted street in one of LA’s many suburbs. Except it’s not quite deserted. Parked on the side of the road is an older model car with a black woman and a young girl standing beside it. I’m on my way home from a late date in my even older stick shift coupe—just the one front seat.

   I pull over and a conversation begins.

   “Are you out of gas?” I ask. 

   

  “I don’t think so,” she answers. “I don’t want to be a bother. Maybe you could stop at the next gas station and tell someone?”

   “No,” I say, “I’m not leaving you and your daughter out here at 3 in the morning. Where do you live? I’ll drive you home.” 

The protests begin. She might have been the most polite woman I’d ever met. 

“I can’t trouble you.” 

“It’s no trouble.” 

“I live too far out of the way.” 

“Where do you live?” 

“Over near Atlantic.” 

“That’s only a mile or two. Hop in.” 

  We never exchanged names, but in a few minutes we were in a run-down neighborhood with dirt front yards and sagging chain link fences. Except for one house in the center of the block with a white picket fence enclosing a green lawn, a well-tended flower garden, and a trim pathway the woman and her daughter now walked up and into their home - which, I’m pretty sure, had a telephone.

   I was home 20 minutes later.

                        Comes Around

   It’s 10 years later. I’m on the way home from night classes an hour away, and it’s about 11 when my car breaks down in south Central LA—also called Watts—a pretty much all-black area. I’m on one of the larger—but now deserted— city streets standing next to my car with my thumb out. Nobody goes by and I start walking. I’m at least 10 miles from home. A couple of cars go by but don’t stop. Then one car does. I approach the passenger window and look in at a black man in his 50s who says

 

   “Get in.”

 

   I do and thank him. 

   “You don’t want to be out here this time of night. Where do you live?” 

    I tell him and he says he’ll take me to the city limits. 

   “I don’t want to be in your town this time of night either,” he says, and drives me 5 or 6 miles closer to home.

   “Thanks for the ride. I really appreciate it. I can walk from here.” He made a u-turn and drove back to his neighborhood.

   This time it took me an hour and half to walk home. 

   And on the long walk home I thought, once again, about what’s wrong with this world and what’s right with it.

* *

The Store/La Tienda by Paul Delgado

 The Store/La Tienda

My grandparents Agustin and Maria owned a small corner grocery store in East Los Angeles during WW II. My grandfather was a welder and my grandmother took care of the little store. Back then, my dad was overseas in the service and his sisters, my aunties, were in high school.

My grandparents were struggling and barely making ends meet in those years. Yet, they were able to survive with the small income from the store and my grandfather’s job. At the time, they also owned a very small apartment in the neighborhood which they had purchased years before and rented out to a young and newly married couple. 

After a few months, the newlyweds were unable to pay the small rent, and one morning, on his way to work, my grandfather told my grandmother… 

”Maria, please speak to them and tell them we need the rent money this week or we will have to ask them to leave.” 

She sighed and said she would stop by and deliver the news.

Later that night, my grandfather returned from work and as he sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, he asked…

”Maria…how did it go today?”

“Did you speak to the tenants?”

“Were you able to collect the rent?”

“Ay Agustin” she sighed

“When I saw how poor they were, I couldn’t ask them”

“What did you do” he asked 

“I went back to the store and bought them groceries”

 A Sacrifice of Kindness 

by Ricki T Thues

In 2004 Paula went to Thailand with the skydiving World Team. Their goal was to set a world record for the largest freefall formation. The plan was to connect 400 skydivers in freefall.

 

The event was at the invitation of the King of Thailand. One of the conditions of the invitation is that the World Team combine with Thai skydivers to perform a 672 person demonstration jump into Bangkok. Paula was nervous about the demo and so were the organizers. Injuries incurred from tight landing areas could jeopardize the freefall record attempts. As it turned out there were no injuries in spite of some roof and tree landings. Paula was fine.

Many stories have come out of the demo and the 400 person Thailand skydiving World Record attempts, but none quite as stunning as one heroic flight.

Paula had been on all the freefall record attempts. On one attempt she failed to take a correct grip on the formation. The organizers asked her to stand down for the next jump. Sadly for her, on that next jump 357 team members completed, setting a new world record.

Since there was daylight remaining the World Team decided to put up another attempt, this time to beat their newly minted record.

Paula and several other skydivers were added to the team. This would be her chance to be on a record after all.

 

During this next record attempt Paula was in one of the four C130 Hercules aircraft. Seated in the airplane were 90 skydivers all with oxygen tubes. They were exiting at 20,000 feet so breathed oxygen from 12,000 feet. 

 

Everyone was calm and contemplative as the fleet of five Thailand military airplanes climbed to altitude. At the three-minute warning everyone stood up, made last minute gear checks and did some deep breathing of oxygen.

The tail gate opened.

 

As Paula stood up she noticed a fellow skydiver, distracted, with a blank look in his eyes.

 

She lunged toward the man and pushed him up against the side wall of the airplane. Three other skydivers, who happened to be doctors, joined Paula in restraining the hypoxic skydiver.

 

Green light. All formed up. “READY, SET, GO.” Everyone rushed out the door. Bodies swept past Paula and company. 

The dazed skydiver was unresponsive. One of the doctors pulled an oxygen hose over to the victim. After some deep breathing his hypoxia was relieved.  During the climb to altitude his oxygen tube had been pinched off. He recovered quickly and thanked everyone for saving his life.

Paula’s act of heroism took away her last chance of being in this year’s record, but she had no regret.

 

In fact, she later said that it was the best flight she had in Thailand. The skydivers were allowed to go up to the cockpit during the flight down. They looked out over the pilots’ shoulders at a panoramic view of the Thailand countryside.

The setting sun washed over that countryside, through the cockpit windows and shone onto the heroes that rode down in the airplane.

Uncommon Axe of Kindness by Don Taco

 Uncommon Axe of Kindness

by Don Taco

 As we dressed for my father's funeral, a pipe under the bathroom sink burst, and soaked down one of my younger sisters, then several more of us as we tried to turn the water off. It had to be shut off at the street. It was a mess. And the well-wrought phrase 'insult to injury' was apt.

 The next weekend, my mother's two brothers, thirty-somethings, and my brother and I, eleven and thirteen, rented and borrowed the appropriate tools, crawled under the house, and re-plumbed it. There wasn't money to pay a professional.

 Hard, dirty work. Every inch of pipe had to be replaced. It took all of that weekend, and all of the next, to finish the job.

 My mother snapped a photo of her brothers near the end of the job. Filthy tee-shirts, torn jeans, smudged faces, and beers in hand. One is conking himself over the head with a huge pipe wrench. The other is shoving a reamer in his ear. Clowns. My family.

 The last piece of the puzzle was the line to the street. Which passed under the driveway. And down a lumpy slope of about forty degrees. Past the roots of a sizeable palm tree. And under the sidewalk as well. Decidedly not trivial. 

 By now, though, it is late Sunday after a second long dirty weekend, and we are exhausted. We are attacking the problem with a pick-axe and a shovel, breaking up the hard-packed clay soil of Southern California, and trying to follow the line of the old pipe down to the meter.

 There isn't room for a group effort, so we are taking turns, chopping and clearing, and the turns are getting shorter and shorter, because we are completely worn out.

 A station wagon passes by, stops, backs up, pulls up to the curb and parks. A man gets out, who turns out to be the husband of my eighth grade teacher. A man we have met, and recognize, but barely know.

 He has seen what we are trying to do, and how well we appear to be doing it. 

 He's dressed for a professional job, a sales position. He takes off his suit coat, tosses it on the car seat, grabs the pick-axe, and attacks the lawn. 

 Thirty minutes later, there is a trench the rest of the way down the slope, and the water meter is exposed. 

 He hops back in the car and continues home. With barely a word.

 Based on the progress we had been making, I estimate that he did more work in thirty minutes than the four of us would have accomplished in the next two hours.

 That wasn't the end of the task, but it sure brought us closer to it. Shoving a pipe under the sidewalk was relatively easy, but, to avoid having to cut through the driveway, we had to hook up a neighbor's hose to a length of pipe, and shove it through the clay like a battering ram. That was messy too. But we got lucky, and came out almost straight in line with the pipe we had to connect to. It was well past dark before we had water to the house again. After ten days without.

 But it probably would have been until the next weekend without the unsolicited help of a man who was just driving by. 

 That's neighborly.

 That's kindness.

 I try to be like that man.

The Picnic Table by Den Watson (Uncommon Acts of Kindness)

                  The Picnic Table

                     by

                    Den Watson

   “Yoo hoo, mister!”

   These are the words I hear as I’m getting into my car in the parking lot of the local home improvement center. When I look I see a black woman of 60 or so in one of those electric shopping carts. She’s sitting next to a fully assembled picnic table near the entrance of the store.

   The woman is saying something else to me, so I walk closer to and say good morning. She returns the greeting and pointing in the direction of my car asks, “Do you think this picnic table will fit in my car?” When I look I see a small, square subcompact parked next to my sedan and realize no way will the table fit. In fact, her car would fit on top of the table!

   It’s a heavy, well-made table with benches attached, worthy of a park or campground.

   “I just bought this table,” she said, “and now I have to get it home.” 

I thought to myself, They’ll have unassembled kits for these tables that might fit inside her little car. But, and for some reason I can't explain, I also thought, This woman doesn’t want a kit—she wants this table she’s sitting right next to, and I have a feeling she’s going to sit right here until she gets it: the Lord will provide. And maybe He did, because right then I decided I’m going to help her get this picnic table home. Don’t really know why—I just did. And little did I know that by meeting this woman I would be rewarded with two small miracles.

   Parked on the other side of the table is one of those vans you rent for $19.95 an hour—a goal almost nobody achieves. We introduce ourselves—her name is Joey––and walk into the store to the customer service counter where a very helpful young lady—Angela— waits on us. 

“Does that table outside fit into the van for rent?” we ask.  

  Angela gets on the phone and assures us it does. 

“Will someone load it into the van for us?” 

  Another quick call. 

 “No problem.”

   Now Joey is reaching for her purse, but I wave her away and give Angela a credit card.

  

   “We’ll settle up later, later, Joey. Right now I have to follow you home in the van, and I hope you’re on the ground floor.” 

Joey says it’s very close, a large apartment complex, and yes, she’s on the ground floor. Five minutes later I’m in the van following Joey, and soon I’m negotiating the narrow apartment lanes. But I pull in and park 20 feet from Joey’s apartment. Joey, it turns out, is also a lay minister in her church, and her place is filled with cases of water, food, and paper supplies. Joey would like the picnic table out in her little patio, but the way the apartment is now we couldn’t get a folding chair out there.

   I nod to  a couple of young black men emptying their trash—Joey says they might help— and I also spy a maintenance man who seems to be avoiding us. He’s seen the van with the big table wedged into it. I walk over to him, explain the situation, give him $20, and tell him I’ll be right back to help after I make a quick trip home.

    At this point I tell Joey not to worry about the money. 

     “I have a hidden agenda, Joey, something you can help me with later, but right now I need you to follow me back to the parking lot and my car. I live nearby and I’m going to get some tools to help move the table.”

  

   It takes another 20 minutes to go home and return to Joey’s apartment - where the first miracle has occurred. Somehow, in the short time I was gone, Joey’s picnic table was removed from the van, carried through the crowded apartment, and planted on the patio exactly where Joey wanted it. Amazing!

   I return the van to the store where the second miracle occurs. The van charge is actually $19.95!  Joey and I completed our mission in 55 minutes.

   I return to Joey’s apartment and share my hidden agenda. I’ve written a play about integrating the US Army in 1947, and I need young black and white men to read for the parts. Can Joey help me with this at a later date?

   “Of course,” says Joey, “and I have just the place for us to sit.”