Donny Osmond story! This feel-good story is a riot!
My BIL was 1 of 5 siblings. Grandma, with early stages of dementia, lived with them. One day grandma slipped out of the house. It may have been cold out; I’m not sure. In any case. Family was frantic; BIL was assigned to man the door at home while the siblings fanned out to go look for grandma. (This is pre- cell phone days,)
Doorbell rings. BIL answers. There is DONNY OSMOND on the front porch with grandma.
DO was in town for the production of Joseoh and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He had been riding with his chauffeur, spotted an obviously- confused old lady wandering, pulled over to see what was wrong, and put her in the car and rode up and down the streets til she thought she recognized s house.
BIL said DO was as nice as could be and genuinely cared about getting this little old lady out of harms way and back with her family.
@musicmom re Post #19 – you don’t need to be rich to track people down. Start by googling their names, or their names plus the town they lived in, or their names plus a parent’s name, and you’ll find that one thing leads to another. There’s a good chance you’ll track them down for free.
@VeryHappy I think I could find them if I tried. What I meant was, if I won the lottery or somehow came into a lot of money, I would share some of it with them.
Has anyone watched that show called, “What would you do?” What always amazed me was how some stranger stepped up to the plate to help others in specific situations. When I reflect back sometimes those who have helped me the most were people who I didn’t know really well or not at all. It’s as if that person just came out of no where just to help me at that crucial moment.
This is from lot of years ago. My father grew up poor in San Francisco, the only child of a Dutch sailor and a First Nations descendant from Canada who worked as a secretary. When WW2 broke out, my grandfather, being too old for the military, left for the Atlantic to serve with the Merchant Marines, leaving his wife and 1 year-old son behind.
Shortly after, the US started seriously gearing up for the war in the Pacific. This involved bringing sailors and marines from across the country to the ports in SF to sail west. Odd by today’s standards, many of them brought along wives and children to wait for their return. The USO and the area rental properties were quickly overwhelmed.
My grandmother heard the story on the radio, the USO pleading for temporary housing for the families. She took the bus down to Market Street to register the second bedroom in her home. Before getting inside, she spotted a woman with suitcases and two small children. She never did go inside - the five of them went back on the bus and lived together for the next two years. Like many families at the time, they waited for their weekly letters from their husbands. Both men returned safely and the families stayed friends for many years.
One of my friends was in HS and opted to participate in an international exchange program. She had taken many years of French, so of course was placed in Japan. The family she was placed with was very good to her and she became very close to their D that was about her age. Over 4 decades later, the families (and their extended families) are still very close and she was pretty fluent in Japanese by the end of her stay in Japan. The families have visited one another’s extended families back and forth across the Pacific Ocean, as well as my friend’s current home in NM.
^^About 35 years ago, my mother-in-law invited some local university grad students from Japan over for Thanksgiving dinner. They are still in touch today and my dh even visited them in Japan when he was there for work. They invited my youngest d to come stay with them for a summer. She turned the opportunity down as she had never met them but it just shows how nice things can come around from a simple nice jesture.
Bringing this back to life with a big thank you to the multiple anonymous folks who stopped to offer their assistance when my child hit a deer on way back to school (4 hours from home, different state). Air bags deployed; thinks car might be totaled…
Physically seems to be ok. So comforting to know people were there in those first moments of terror. And the local police there taking amazing care and helping to finish the trip - arranging to unload car into truck and driving the rest of the way! Amazing, right?!
When you can’t be there for your kids, knowing there are decent people to help is so comforting.
Lots of good people out there. And I am so grateful for them.
Long story short–I tripped, fell, and went head first into a metal kiosk. I had a very deep cut and need double-diget stitches. As I started to get up from the sidewalk–people appeared out of nowhere. My D ran to get ice. Meanwhile people were offering me clothing, towels, etc to stop the bleeding. A woman and her husband–she was a murse and he was a fire fighter–stayec with me until the ambulance arrived. She held the ice on my forehead amd he explained what the EMTs would do. I went to the ER and all that the fire fighter told me about what to expect happened. Luckily, I didnt have a concussion–just a deep laceration on my forehead and bruised knees. Everyone in the ER was just as kind and helpful. Thre are good people!
I was in a car accident that left my right leg very stiff and sore. I had trouble getting up from a sitting position because due to soreness my thigh felt like wood. My dd prepared dinner everyday and tried to help me whenever possible even if meant just getting me a glass of water. She didn’t complain once. I need to make it up to her somehow.
What a wonderful thread! My two stories are about family members. One time, one of my college D’s and I were in the airport and she observed a young boy, maybe 6 or 7, and said to me, “Mom, I think that boy’s lost.” I thought the boy was walking behind a woman and assumed she was his mother. She continued to watch him and discovered he really was alone. She went up to him and it turns out that he was deaf. She had been taking sign language in college and it turns out he’d gotten separated from his group. D helped him connect with someone at the airport and, ultimately, reunited with his group. (Surprisingly, he didn’t have any ID on him.)
One time dh was traveling for work and he noticed a couple of kids flying on their own. The plane made a stop and the second leg was delayed for hours. He heard one of the kids on the phone telling (presumably) a parent that they didn’t have any money and were hungry. DH took them to one of the eateries and bought them dinner and some snacks. He then watched over them to make sure they got back on the plane when it was finally ready to board.
I’d like to think that I’ve done thoughtful things too but, honestly, I can’t think of any right now! Tomorrow I’m going to watch out for an opportunity to pay it forward.
Shortly after my second child was born, while I was struggling with the complexities of dealing with two kidlets instead of just one, I loaded the kids, the tricycle, the stroller, and the diaper bag into the car for the drive home from the playground, and LEFT MY PURSE ON THE ROOF OF THE CAR. It fell off into the street the moment I started up the car, but I didn’t realize anything had happened until I got home, and when I did realize that my purse was missing, I had no idea where it could be because I had been to several different places that morning.
A man coming out of a nearby restaurant saw it happen. He picked up the purse, found my wallet, checked the name and address on my driver’s license, looked me up in the phone book (this was in the landline era), and called me to tell me he had my purse. We arranged to meet back at the playground a few minutes later, where he gave me back the purse, with all of its contents still intact. I never saw him again.
It is so easy in a world of anger and hate, people doing horrible things, to think that people are all nasty evil things who just want to screw others, and that isn’t true. We recently adopted a pair of rescue pups, the group that does it get dogs from down south in areas where there are massive problems with unwanted dogs, they get the dogs medical care, often extensive (one of the dogs we adopted spent 4 days in an animal hospital with parvo), and find them good homes, people foster the dogs. If someone who adopts a dog runs into medical problems and they have trouble affording it, the group will help raise money to cover the costs. With the disaster in Louisiana they immediately rented a large van, filled it with food and other supplies and drove 20 hours to get it down on the ground where it was needed, the shelter they usually got dogs from end up flooding and they lost something like 37 of the 40 dogs they had…and when they got there, they spent time helping rescue stray dogs, and came north with a truck full of them, to care for them and find them homes.
And before people ask why they care about dogs and not people, they do. The woman and her sister who run the group also actively help people in need in their own community, they live in a section of northern NJ where there are groups of people in need and they actively do fundraising and help those people. They get nothing out of it other than the joy of seeing animals and people in need, those most vulnerable, get what they need.
And there are a lot of people out doing that, doings things big and small. We don’t hear about them, because the loudmouth politicians, the greedy, the celebrities get all the press, but in the real world out there there are a lot of heroes, a lot more than villains IME.
When H and I were in New Orleans with our toddler and baby, H wanted to help me with my bags. I handed the bags to him and took charge of the kiddos. We were on the St Charles Streetcar and got off and walked to our hotel. Shortly after arriving in our hotel room, we got a call from a stranger asking if we had lost a black waist pack in the St Charles streetcar. I stared at H and frantically searched around and said, “Yes, we appear to have lost it.” The person said they found it and we’re bringing it to the hotel as we spoke. They refused any reward but only urged us to “pay it forward.” I’ve never forgotten their kindness and am so glad I tucked the hotel card in my waist pack!