Manners & Doing the Right Thing

Kim du Toit points to a small, everyday thing that can make your day a whole lot better.

Something like holding the door for a lady.

It reminded me of something that happened a few weeks ago on the Navy base here. I was with my girlfriends granddaughter, Kris, running errands on the base. The sun had just set, and as we left the gas station, I noticed a car in an odd place, lights on, seemingly parked.

As we passed, I notice the car wasn't parked, it had cut the corner too quickly and run off the road. Normally, this would be no big deal, but it had been raining and the car had become stuck in the mud.

If you've ever been on the base (or most any base), you know it's a ghost town on Sunday evenings. I turned around and went to see if I could help.

The eldery, stuck gentleman had to have been a Korean War vet, if not WWII. He had indeed cut the corner short (poor lighting in that area) and wasn't quite axle-deep in mud. Lucky for us he was driving a really small car, and after rocking it a bit, we pushed it right back out onto the pavement.

He then asked me where the air terminal was, I regretfully informed him the air terminal had been closed since the Navy took their flyboys to Pensacola in the '90's. He then asked for the billeting (lodging) office, which I led him to easily enough. After a thanks from him and a Merry Christmas from me, we went on our way, with that same warm fuzzy Kim talks about in his post.

What got me, however, was Kris' reaction to what had transpired. She'd obviously never seen this before. She wanted to tell everyone she knew, shout it from the mountaintop as it were. After getting over a small bit of confusion, I have to say the warm fuzzy grew just a bit.

It's good to show a kid that doing the right thing isn't just a theory you learn in church or from your parents, it's something that actually happens from time to time.