Friday, November 18, 2011

Random acts of kindness


I always liked the sound of that, but never really set out to do any. How many opportunities come up anyway? And then recognizing and again (gasp) doing something, well the odds against them are pretty big. So, without that in mind I set out today on the annual search for a small turkey and Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix. Oh, and too, to address a bit of a health problem, which in the end didn't get addressed.

Anyway, at the first store I was meandering down an aisle until I was stopped by a roadblock. On one side a Walmart stocker was filling a shelf. On the other a very frail woman who honestly didn’t look strong enough to be shopping alone, was in one of those electric carts and trying to extract a tray of candy from the display it had been crammed into. I watched her patiently for a minute, glanced at the Walmart guy who sort of looked over his shoulder and then went back to his work, and finally realized the woman needed some help. So, I walked over, asked her loudly enough for the Walmart guy to hear, and then pulled the stubborn candy out of the display and put it in her basket for her.

She smiled, started up her machine and rolled past me and we both went on our ways.

After checking out of that store, I went to the next for just couple of things I couldn't find. As I was waiting in the checkout, I realized a new problem had presented itself. A young girl was checking out a whole basket full of what looked like party mix supplies. I could see she had a ten and a twenty in her hand and when the total came out to more than $60 she looked totally shocked, and then embarrassed and then that quizzical look that said "What do I do now?" The checker was very patient. The girl's shopping list turned out to be a recipe for the mix and the checker went down each item telling the girl she didn't need this much or that much and that maybe she just needed to make a smaller batch. I thought that was much nicer than getting all upset with her, the poor kid seemed just lost. I think maybe she was looking forward to her first party (it being Friday and all) and among other things wondering how it would go if she didn't bring the party mix.

In time the checker had the amount under $40 and was still going. At that point I looked in my wallet and found a five-dollar bill, but before I could get it out the total had dropped to $31.99. Impasse. Nothing more could be taken off the list and the kid was $2 short. And I had two bills for that. So I offered my $2. The checker looked so appreciative, the girl smiled at me like I had saved the world and I just said, "It's happened to all of us at some time or other."

When the girl left, the checker thanked me for my patience. And I told her I thought it was great how she took the time to help the girl work it out. As the kids say sometimes (or did) It's all good.
So, two in one day. Not bad. Maybe it was because in the first place I looked there was a bin of small turkeys and a display of Pepperidge Farm stuffing products.

So, next Thursday if you are in the neighborhood, I have this turkey that is still way more than I can eat, and whole lot of other stuff, and am planning to sit down and enjoy "A Very Gaga Thanksgiving" on television. Come on by.


OH, and the picture: Have you ever seen a fatter chickadee in your life? They are all puffed out to keep warm, but this guy was noticeably bigger than the others. Maybe I won't have to look so far for a small turkey next year.
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Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.― Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”―Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

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“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

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Sports malaprops

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"… there's a fearlessment about him …"

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