My Mom Got it Right

Have you ever wondered where good manners have gone?  Does anyone teach that stuff anymore?  When I was a kid my mother taught me to say please and thank you and to be polite to my elders.  Where has that idea gone?  Now I think they give lessons in being rude because there are so many people that are really good at it.

My mother was generally right about most things.  Not all the time though.  She told us kids that if we didn’t rinse the soap out from under our arms we would get a fever.  She was wrong about that.  I know because I tried that in boot camp so I could go on sick call.  I just got itchy armpits.

There are some lessons that you just don’t figure out until you are older.  Kind of like the itchy armpit thing.  Other lessons are best understood when we are young before we let all the other adult stuff get in the way.  Take pride for instance.  Babies don’t let pride get in the way when its time to be fed.  Adults allow pride get in the way all the time.  Someone offers help and pride jumps up and says, “I don’t need any help!”

I’d like to tell you a little story about how I learned a lesson……..

The Hitch Hiker

A Lesson in Gratitude

When I was in the Navy I didn’t have much money.  I didn’t have a car and I never had enough cash for a bus ticket so I hitch hiked.  I hitch hiked all over the place.  I hitch hiked the five hundred miles from Norfolk, Virginia to Groton, Connecticut just about every weekend I could get a 72 hour liberty.

On this one occasion I was stuck on the road coming out of New York City into Connecticut.  I never liked standing on the side of the road.  You never knew who would stop to pick you up.  I use to go to gas stations and look around at the potential rides and ask the people that looked promising if they would give me a lift.  That way I got to pick the people I asked.  I looked for families and fellow members of the military and out of state plates.

On this particular day I wound up on the side of the road no where near a gas station.  I had been standing there for quite a while when finally a guy stopped to offer me a ride.  He didn’t look too threatening so I climbed in.  About five minutes into the ride I noticed that he had a gun under his shirt.  That got me a little nervous.

Skillfully (I thought) I began working into the conversation that I was broke.  It was true, I was broke I had a whole $2.50 on me.  I was thinking that if he intended to rob me he would figure it was a waste of time.  That was my usual strategy for robbery avoidance.  I had used it on more than one occasion and since, up to that point, I hadn’t been robbed I figured it worked.

I figured it worked again because he didn’t stick me up and throw me out of his car.  We talked about a bunch of unimportant things that I have long sense forgotten.  Eventually we reached the place where I was going to get out.  He started to reach back to where he had the gun holstered and I thought here goes my $2.50.  Instead of pulling out his gun he pulled out his wallet.  He gave me every dollar that he had.  He apologized for what he gave me because, in his words, it wasn’t much, but it was all he had on him.  He went on to say that if he had more he would have gladly given it to me.

You see, he was a New York City cop on his way home from work.  That explained the gun.  He had a brother in the service and he knew what I was going through.  He figured that if he could help me he would be doing something good that day.

I don’t know much about cops.  I do know that they do something good just about every day.  I also know that they don’t make huge salaries.  They risk their life everyday to keep the bad guys from taking the $2.50 we have stuffed in our pockets. 

I know something else about that particular cop.  There is a place in heaven marked out for him and the guys like him.  That cop taught me about charity and about gratitude.  He gave me a sense of gratitude that I will never forget. 

There goes that hymn again sounding off in my head.  “Have you done any good in the world today?  Have you helped anyone in need?”

If by some really odd circumstance that cop reads this story I hope he will give me a call so that I can thank him for making me a better man than I was before I got into his car.

Until the next time keep smiling and when you see someone in need help them out even if it is just a little act of kindness.