Driving with my friend Di today when I noticed a ... well, a body! lying near the road, underneath a bicycle. I instantly began yammering to that body, as if it could hear me: Hey, Buddy, are you ok? What's up? What's going on? as I came screeching to a halt. Diane, not having spotted said human being, thought I was off my rocker until she got her own eyeful. We raced over to find that our body was alive, an older woman who had succumbed to the heat while she was test-driving a bicycle from a shop down the road.
She was a bit disoriented, smiling, and saying she had felt dizzy and decided to lie down. We could move along, she told us.
Yeah, she'd decided to lie down right underneath her bike. I didn't think so, and I wasn't "going on" anywhere while she was still stretched out. Soon enough several other people stopped, offering bottled water from their cars, cel phone, and general assistance.
We got her sitting up and hydrated, and she insisted on continuing on her trek, refusing to let me put her bike in my car. We let her go then, but we sneak-followed behind her, tippy-toe-ing from parking lot to parking lot in the car, to make sure she made it back.
And...I just wanted to write THIS post--on how nice people really are, how many people stopped to help--a 19 year old kid and his girlfriend, a large family, and how I went home feeling restored, after my kvetching about rude people that don't say hello in the workplace, in the OTHER blog entry.
People are inherently good.
Oh, this is a great blog! It made me laugh and want to cry!!
ReplyDeleteoh man, one time while I myself was biking along a country road outside Champaign I was huffing up a hill and watching a little old man teetering down his lane, approaching his mailbox. I passed him just as his hand was reaching for the mailbox latch. As I was coasting down the other side of the hill I glanced over my shoulder, just in time to see him topple over backwards into the ditch, just like a statue, his hand still raised to open his mailbox.
ReplyDeleteWell, I huffed back up that hill but the by the time I reached the top he'd risen, collected his mail, and started back up the lane.
I'd forgotten about that. Thanks for the reminder!
"People are inherently good."
ReplyDeleteWell, I wouldn't go that far. But you are good, hon!