A disabled lady with season tix to local hockey arrives in the midst of the pre-game warmup skate. Her seats are right on the glass, so people from all over the arena's seating areas pour down there to press noses to the glass for that skate. She just bulls right in, announcing, "You're standing in my seats, please move out of the way," from her motorized chair.
When we're able to go, we sit there too, on the folding chairs that section offers... It's much harder to clear the crowd to get to the glass we've paid to sit by, though. Hardi walks up brandishing a folded chair and starts to unfold it (enlarging it) in such close proximity to the people that they edge out of the way, and he smiles and explains, "Oh, I'm sorry-- these are our seats." Simply sitting BEHIND them never got us any consideration...
One night though the throng included a small little boy, just tall enough to see over the boards. Once we'd cleared the glass and sat, and people crowded around behind us so they could still see, he just looked bereft-- a real budding fan, there; maybe a future hockey player. And shorter than my seated line of sight. So I reached out and scooped him to stand in front of me-- why not?!?!?!? Even in today's "don't touch my child" atmosphere.
And his folks were great. When they left for the start of the game, to go back to their seats, instead of making the big deal of "Say thanks to the lady," the parents gave us a special smile and said quietly, "Thanks, that meant a lot to him."
Now THAT's courtesy-- I HATE that thing where parents try to make their kids say "the right thing." "What do you say," "Thank the lady," -- any of that stuff. Like the kids are doing something wrong when what is wanted is not to stop doing a wrong thing but to start doing a right thing.
When I moved him up, that little kid's smile of thanks was enough, really!
I often post here about the regular human beans caught inside various situations, and that Rec Planner who's working on my "needs" is a just a human bean trying to do her job every day, too. I read up on what the Rec Planner does at that org-- she's really going above and beyond, not because SHE made the glitch in their accessibility, but because she's very customer-service oriented. It turned out she's pretty cool (understatement and thank you Google), and it's always good to make a friend.
This AM's email included a referral beyond their own system to a good facility in a different gummint facility.
We're also exploring the mechanism by which private grant funding can be used for "improvements" at a gummint facility-- Hardi sits on a local board.