BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects

Subject: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Aug 03 - 06:21 AM

Are there moments in your life on which you can look back when a stranger or near-stranger said or did something kind to/for you? Something which has stuck with you? I'm not talking about any of the myriad of ways in which Mudcatters have generously given to one another, but that of someone whom you barely knew or didn't know at all.

There are a handful of times I can think of, which really bolstered my self-confidence and which have remained vivid in my mind, almost as defining mini-moments, kind of like what Peter T. has mentioned in the Dangerous Books thread. Not that any of the people I can think of were subversive or dangerous, except in a good sense!

Please share your stories with us.

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Amos
Date: 12 Aug 03 - 09:02 AM

My daughter acquired her first (and so far, only) surfboard from a party of complete strangers in a beach colony in Mexico one vacation. It would have cost us several hundred dollars. She got her own firat guitar from an acquaintance (not a stranger) in a similar way.

A man I can't identify, buty who was a friend of my parents, told me not to worry, that I would "make it", whhatever that meant, when I was too young to even worry about the question, but he was so encouraging that I have always remembered it.

A man I didn't know appeared out of the mist on the coast highway at Big Sur in 1963 and stopped to help -- he singlehandedly recovered my motorscooter, using a cable winch he had on the front of his Jeep -- from the side of the cliff 50 feet below. Where, I might add, it had been thrown by another stranger from the side of the road where I had left it to look for help with a flat tire.

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 12 Aug 03 - 10:44 AM

Amos, your third instance is enough to make one become a Manichean!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Amos
Date: 12 Aug 03 - 11:01 AM

I guess, Dave, if I'd become a Manichean I woulda walked home instead of fixing up the recovered motorbike! That scooter was doomed. My girl and I rode it all the way from San Francisco to Pomona, just to visit a friend on a whim, and lo! it got stolen in Pasadena. Kismet, my ass!! sez I.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Aug 03 - 05:15 PM

The pickup that I was driving in connection with my rental management job was missing its back window. I didn't know how much it would cost but I knew something would have to be done before winter. The owner had kind of washed her hands of it and I knew it was up to me.

One day a friend and I were at a rural garage sale- when we got back to the pickup with our goodies a man was standing there. I have an extra Toyota pickup window I think will fit this one, he said. He lived about a mile away. My friend and I followed him to his home and while we stood there, he removed the window from a junker he was having hauled away and put it in the back of my pickup.

I paid him $25 for his work, thanked him profusely and drove away. Paid another $25 to my friend's son to put the window in and I was set for winter.

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 12 Aug 03 - 05:26 PM

The person who scratched a great gash into the side of a former partners' car, and slashed all 4 of his tyres.... never did find out who did it, but I owe them one... seeing his reaction over what happened to his car, after what he'd just done to me, convinced me that he'd always care more for that car than he did me.....

Thank you, whoever you were!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 12 Aug 03 - 05:49 PM

My wife and three kids took off from Victoria, BC to Edmonton, Alberta about a year ago and the car broke down (dead) in Blue Mountain -- a graveyard for vehicles that don't have the plums to make it over the Rockies. While she was begging the local mechanic to do something my three kids went into the diner next door and my eldest comforted the younger two over a round of Cokes. When my wife came back the eldest gave her a $20 bill which had been given to her by an elderly American lady in the diner who had overheard the tale of woe. She got shit for taking money from a stranger, but if you're reading this, elderly American lady, thanks, your kindness gave my kids a boost when needed and, frankly, shocked me when I heard the story.

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Aug 03 - 07:16 PM

Liz's example there set me thinking we could have a thread about the bad deeds that turned out to be good deeds in heavy disguise.

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Aug 03 - 11:24 PM

These are great folks, keep them comin'!

I remember when I was a very young mother, working as a nurse's aide. One of my patients was a man who had lost the side of his mouth and jaw to cancer. He didn't have much will to live even though he was not impaired in anyway, except unable to really articulate well. I did my best to understand him and help him as much as possible. His wife was a retired nurse and they were well-off. I guess I must've impressed her because she took me aside one day and offered to put me through nursing school! Caught me completely off-guard as we'd really not talked much, just to say hello, etc. I was being treated badly at home by my then-husband and didn't have much confidence in myself. As I looked back at this over the years I have always been grateful to her for that vote of confidence. It made me brave enough to think outside of an abusive marriage and able to move on. I don't even remember her name.

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Sorcha
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 01:12 AM

We had not been married long and were in Las Vegas New Mexico. Mr. was rookie State Police on minimal salary. I couldn't find a job and were were walking the Interstate looking for soda bottles and aluminum to re sell. I didn't even have enough gas in the vehicle to get to the library. Flat broke after paying 1st/last/deposits, etc. The brand new neighbor in the other half of the duplex gave us $100 and told us to pay it forward. We have, many times.

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: mack/misophist
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 10:51 AM

I think this thread is based on a mistaken idea. Random acts of kindness that have major effects are vanishingly rare, and perhaps they ought to be. If that sort of thing were common we'd all come to rely on it. That would be very bad indeed. Shouldn't we, instead, try to scatter as many minor acts of kindness as we conveniently can? This might be a case where quantity is better than quality.

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Amos
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 11:19 AM

It doesn't take a huge act to have a lasting effect, Mis. A smile at the right moment can change the course of a lifetime!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 11:30 AM

"Minor" is in the mind of the giver, I think. What may seem a minor act of kindness may be of major importance to the giftee. I'd hate to think that by focussing on a few stories of such things, we'd become so dependent. If that were the case I'd be a lost cause from way back. Certainly, it would be good if we all spread around the kindnesses as much as possible, but I don't believe sharing our stories diminishes them in anyway.

By their very rarity, of the ones we've read here, they are most precious and protected from ever becoming so commonplace, imo.

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Cluin
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 12:25 PM

For the lady in the jampacked mini-van with the "Handle With Prayer" license plate holder and vanity plate that read "ALL4JESUS" who preceded us through the toll gate last Friday and paid our toll and told the toll girl to wish us "Have a blesséd day!"...

Thanks.    We did. The whole weekend was pretty fine actually.

I wonder if you knew we were 2 heathen musicians whose regular job consists of pretty much encouraging people to get drunk and rowdy... and who do it damn well too. We're well on our way to being the house band in Hell.

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 12:52 PM

LOL...love it, Cluin!

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 12:58 PM

As for bad things that turned out good, I think that's a great idea for a thread! Sort of like the song "A Taoist Tale".

It was 1973. I'd graduated high school and been at a party into the wee hours, doing a few of the mood-enhancing things one did at parties in the 70s - in copious quantities. I got in my car to go home and my battery was dead so I went back to the party house. A guy who'd been at the party and left earlier stopped back after my unsuccessful attempt to leave, and gave me a ride home. When I returned for the car the next day, the battery was fine. My guess is this guy disconnected it and hung around so he could make sure I got home OK. We never were great friends - mostly friendly acquaintances. I was mad as hell at the time to think someone decided FOR me I shouldn't drive, but I obviously didn't have great judgement skills. I'll never know what might have happened, but I may very well owe him my life.

And maybe no one disconnected the battery, but would have been just
TOO weird!

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 04:08 PM

When I was in college, I worked at the ice cream store down the street and I had to walk to work. One evening I was on my way, and was nearly in tears the whole time. I was broken up about something, I don't remember what it was now. But it must have been pretty obvious. An older gentleman walking in the opposite direction held out his hand to me as I walked by, and said, Here, you need one of these.

It was nothing but one of those little Kraft butterscotch candies. Probably the sweetest one I ever tasted. I don't know who he was, and it was such a small thing, really, but you'll notice I never forgot it.

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Mark Clark
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 05:47 PM

“The kindness of strangers” is a quote from Blanche Dubois's final speech as she is led away to the asylum after her brutal rape, by her brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalsky, has unhinged her mind in Tennessee Wiliams's A Streetcar Named Desire. I think the line is something like “I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.”

When I saw the thread title, I immediately thought it was a reference to Streetcar. Imagine my surprise to find a collection of genuinely warm stories. Thanks.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 06:11 PM

Oh, Mark! Thanks for that. I had forgotten that quote! I was going to put "random acts of.." in the title, but it got too long and that's been so overdone with the bumper stickers and all...

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 04:05 PM

I always get puzzled at how some people get indignant when there isn't a "Thank you" for a minor act of courtesy or kindness, either by themselves or by a companion. It takes the bloom off the act somehow, if there's a sense that it's done with the expectation of a payback - it turns it into a transaction.

"Thank you" is pleasant, and very welcome, of course - but it should be seen andnreceived as another random act of courtesy, not as a payment. The way you pay back acts of kindness is by being komd to someone else next time you get a chance.

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 04:23 PM

Ah yes, the other side of the story... being the stranger and handing out the kindness. I've done many things like that - stopping to help people with buggies, heavy loads or just opening a door - that thank you can make it all worth while.

Of course, it's also got me covered in blood, shouted at for being a busybody and late for work so many times ... but still, I've had people being kind to me, I can't repay them, so I forward it on to someone else.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Shelley C
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 04:39 PM

My partner and I went to Cyprus for our holiday last year. One day we drove up in the Troodos mountains. We stopped the car in a lay-by to admire the view. An old man approached us, smiling broadly, with a bucket full of beautiful fresh fruit.

At first we thought he was trying to sell us some, but then we realised he just wanted to give some to us. We couldn't thank him as neither of us speak a word of Greek. We just smiled and nodded, and my partner shook him by the hand.

We came back from that holiday with very warm feelings towards Cyprus and Cypriots.

Shelley

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 05:06 PM

If there's any computer tech-smart Mudcatter out there who could advise me, here's an opportunity for a bit of random kindness - "Tech: My hard disk is out of reach... "

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 15 Aug 03 - 12:43 PM

My grandmother, who had red hair, told me that a woman she had never seen before stopped her on a street in Evansville, Indiana. this would have been about 1900.

The kids she knew teased her about her red hair. Apparently they thought red-haired people were promiscuous (a superstition still current in some places.) Anyway, the woman told Grandma that her hair was beautiful and unusual, and she was very lucky to have it. It changed Grandma's view of herself, and fifty-five years later she still remembered that encounter.

Believe it or not, in 1972 I talked to a young girl from an Italian family who had glorious, thick red hair. (The others, whether boys or girls, all looked like they had been popped out of the same mold.) She told me that she hated her hair, that the others teased her and called her weird. I did my best to talk her out of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Kindness of strangers - lasting effects
From: Amos
Date: 15 Aug 03 - 01:00 PM

Apparently they thought red-haired people were promiscuous

THus is probably a vicious rumor fouonded on wishful thinking by a bunch of frustrated males.

A