The Not Good Enough Samaritan

I was taking a break for studying for midterms today while I ran across an interesting article. I passed up the 1.5 million year old human footprint news story to Injured Good Samaritan Ticketed for Jaywalking . 

I read the story about the 58 year old bus driver named Jim Moffett who along with the assistance of another passenger left his bus to help two elderly women cross the street. A pick up truck speed up and before it hit him, Moffett pushed the two elderly women to safety-saving their lives.

When Moffett woke up in a hotel room, he had awoken to the bad news that he suffered from bleeding in the brain, broken bones, a dislocated shoulder and a possible ruptured spleen. If this wasn't bad enough, he had received a ticket for jawalking.

Apparently his samaritan deed was not good enough for some people. 

"Sometimes The Simplest Idea Can Make The Biggest Difference."

After reading about Wal-Marts random acts of kindness I thought all week about the other acts of kindness that I have encountered through my life. I would like to know other stories if anyone has any to offer.

 I thought about the movie Pay it Forward and how it spread the idea that if you do 3 nice things for 3 strangers and ask them to not pay it back to you, but instead pay it forward, can we start to change the world? When this movie came out in 2000, the thought of paying it forward resonated in the minds of many.

 A few years later I experienced my own "pay it forward" moment while on vacation with my family. We we're driving to South Carolina, and passing through Virginia at the time. The toll booths we passed through were becoming pretty routine, especially because we pass through these same ones every summer. My dad is always driving, and my mom is in charge of getting the $1.25 ready to pass off to the collector. 

After waiting in line for a few minutes, we pulled up to the window only to find that the car in front of us had already paid. Baffled my dad asked the woman to repeat herself, and we drove off with all of our jaws dropped to the ground. We speed up to take a look at the silver sedan that had been in front of us, and the man driving looked over and just smiled. We had never seen this man before in our lives.

Although I knew we would never see this man every again, we knew that by his small gift of $1.25, he had made our day. When we pulled up to the next booth, my mom handed my dad $2.50, and told the lady that we were indeed paying for the next car.

I know this is a lot smaller than the Wal-Mart gift, but it's not the price that matters, it's the idea. I would like to hear other stories like this and blog about them for awhile. They seem to be important slices of life. Thinking about the man who paid our toll brings a smile to my face years later. Thinking about the movie Pay it Forward makes me think that we should bring this idea back a little by the small things we can do, and not expect anything back.

"Is it possible,

For one idea,

To change the world"

-Pay it Forward 

An Anonymous Stranger

For one of my communication classes, we have been studying Wal-Mart. We recently watched the video, "Is Wal-Mart Good for America". After watching this, we have been researching different things that happen behind closed doors of the well known store.

Among finding all the articles regarding using third world Country sweat shops to keep their production low, and all the controversy that Wal-Mart is facing, I found something that was much more up my alley.

I am constantly touched by stories I find about Random Acts of Kindness. In the negative talk about Wal-Mart, I was extremely happy to find this video and article about an act that happened in the Searcy, Arkansas Wal-Mart to a women named Mary Wadley. 

She tells her story about how she was having trouble making ends meet, and one day, when the final item was swiped leaving her bill to $139 dollars, the cashier informed her that the man before her had already paid for her groceries.

Wadley remembers the man smiling at her before leaving, and after she found out what he had done, looked for him as he headed towards to door, and he never looked back. She calls this anonymous stranger her angel, and is keeping her receipt for hope of the future of getting back on her feet.

A Package Deal

After thinking about Little Sibs Weekend, I couldn't stop thinking about how different Children see the world than we do. The little girls I babysit were on my mind the entire weekend. It's true that "Kid's say the darndest things." They only believe in the things they see and match together. I usually babysit with one of my friends Hil, we joke that we come as a package deal. On Hilary's birthday, Allie(6) and Emily (4) called her to sing her a happy birthday. As soon as they were done singing they asked her "where's Kenz???". They couldn't even connect the fact that we wouldn't be together all the time. I wonder if that was one of the things we would never grow out of, the idea that we only believe in what we see. Kid's are the greatest about believe in make believe things, but if it's something that makes sense to adults(much like two teenage babysitters not always being together), Kid's sometimes just don't get it.

I read an article about the less sophisticated things children connect and what we grow out of. I can't even keep track of the things on the list that kids argue from seeing verses believing.  When we're little, we believe in the little things, in the tooth fairy, that we can fly, that we can make pretend to be just about anything. My favorite thing that children think is that they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. As we grow older we grow out of some of these believes, and start to believe in other nominal things that we can't see, muc

h like love. I can't stop thinking about when the cross over from seeing and believing, the tooth fairy to true love, and children to adult. 

Sometimes, I'd like to think we all find a little childish side that never left, even the stuff we can't explain. Like the last time Hilary went to babysit, while I was at school.

Emily: Hi Hil, mom, when is Kenz coming?

Mom: Oh she's at school honey, she's not coming tonight.

Emily: But...it's dark out...? 

Things like this make me wish everyday was my fifth birthday.

Little Sib's Weekend

I was fortunate enough to participate in Little Sibs Weekend at my school this weekend. I am the youngest of 4 kids, but thankfully, my friend Jenn had her two little sisters, Kayla 17, and Erin 6 come for the weekend. Kayla fit right in with college life, she had been there a few times before to visit, and will be going off to college next year. I was surprised to find how un-fit college life is for children. 

I'm not sure about anyone else, but this weekend was extremely tiring for a few of my friends. Jenn was trying to give her parents a little break, especially since it was Valentines Day, and took the girls off her hands at least for one night. It was Erin's first night from home. All weekend while I was watching Erin interact I couldn't even keep track off all the things that are beautiful about little children.

Innocent, they have no idea when they are doing something in harms way, or even the wrong thing. For the most part, they do what they are told. As we grow up it becomes harder and harder to do what are parents tell us is the right thing, we're always fighting against the norm. Children don't know the difference.

I thought about this all weekend and found this article about children's innocence eroding away over time. This made me think of all the things Erin was exposed to  that go on in college that probably eroded a few shreads of her innocence away. While her sister was upset about losing $20, and throwing around words she normally doesn't have to filter out of her vocabulary while she's at school Erin just giggled, and showed her innocence by her line, "Jenn, I know how to spell and I know what the F word stands for". 

Pressure

  Earlier this week, I was watching one of my favorite shows, Grey's Anatomy.  There is a woman named Dr. Dixon on the show, who has Asperger's Syndrome. A mother of a patient feels relieved when finding out her daughter will live, and goes to give this doctor a hug. The audience of the show realizes that Dr. Dixon does not like it when she is touched, but obviously this character did not. After she is hugged she swarms out of the room. When another doctor goes and finds her, I thought the cure to this was ironic. In this scene we find out that the cure for this hug, is "constant deep tight pressure across large areas of her body" in laymen's terms...a hug.

I read up on this a little bit, and found a lot of information about how as humans we need the touch of other humans to survive, and most of the time this comes in the form of hugs. I read an article about a woman hugged more than 8,000 people in one day. The called her the "hugging saint". I thought about all the people in my life that know when I need a hug that can brighten my day. Constant deep tight pressure-whether were having a bad day and need cheered up, whether we haven't seen a friend in a long time, or if we're saying goodbye, or we're consoling someone, or even if it's just hello, I guess I never really realized how important and ironic hugging can be.

Just a thought. 

Never Satisfied

As another Super Bowl comes to a end, fans everywhere are celebrating and mourning the outcome of Sunday nights game. Personally, I didn't even watch the football game, not even for the commercials, I did however catch Jennifer Hudson starting the night off with the National Anthem. 

Today, turning on my computer I imagined I would see articles and commentary on the plays of the game, or whether or not the referees were fair. However, I didn't imagine that I would find criticism of Jennifer Hudson lip-syncing the National Anthem. I was surprised to find that shows producer Ricky Minor was the one who actually made her pre-record the song. This was Hudson's first public appearance since the tragic deaths of her mother, brother, and nephew in October. With this in mind, and the fact that she was performing for the most watched television program of the year-who wouldn't be nervous?

I'm not going to sit here and argue my point on the fact that it doesn't really matter if it was pre-recorded or not, that it still sounded good, but what I can't help but wonder is why anyone cares?

After the Janet Jackson scandal the media went nuts, very understandable. Something went wrong and it was questionable whether the celebrities intended to hurt the audience or just gain publicity. I admit I was completely interested in hearing about the controversies on the wardrobe malfunction. 

I can't help but think about how wrapped up our entire society is getting on criticising and putting down people and situations for no reason. What will it take for us to be satisfied? We're filled with enough drama in daily life, and them jammed pack with celebrity gossip and talk of controversy. What's wrong with just the truth anymore?

I know this topic is a little much to get into, but for now, I for one plan on just enjoying Jennifer Hudson's version of the National Anthem. Whether she pre-recorded it or not, at least she kept it rated G, and that's more than Jackson can say.  I for one, am satisfied in supported Hudson for getting herself back out there, and wish other would feel the same way. The Steelers might have beat the Cardinals, but it looks like critiques have one up on Hudson for today. 

The Greatest Gift

I was checking my mail this morning and a story on Yahoo caught my eye. Whenever I'm thinking about or talking with someone about the little things in life that amaze people someone the idea of gift giving always seems to come up. Especially around the holiday season people get wrapped up into the hot new toys and sales of the century that they lose sight on what the holiday is really about. The same could be said about birthdays- sometimes people get wrapped up into the presents people will give them that they forget what really matters. Thankfully there are slices of life that happen to some people to realize that there are some gifts you would never want to return. A 6 year old boy from Nevada had the most amazing birthday gift ever.  I hope that we all remember some of the gifts we've received in our lives we could never life without, just like this little boy did.