Rantings and Ravings

By Sun Advocate

Small random acts of kindness very seldom get much attention as we go about our daily lives. Almost every day either we take a moment and help some one or someone helps us.
My neighbor, for example always puts my garbage can away on garbage day even when I am home. He started it many years ago after I came home from work and found my can blown down the street, tangled up with several others.
When many of us got caught a bit off guard with the new postal rate increase, we put mail in our boxes with the old stamps on them. My letters were taken anyway and the right amount of postage added. My letter carrier left me a little note telling my I owed her ten cents.
It was a nice gesture she didn’t have to do. Instead I could have gotten a note and my outgoing mail back telling me to add postage. I wonder how many stamps she added that week.
I hope everyone paid her back.
Monday I was sitting on Carbon avenue in my truck waiting to drop my grand daughter off at dance class. A car pulled up and an older women got out of the vehicle to go into the medical supply store. As she tried to step across the ditch with water running she slipped and hit her face on the curb.
Three young teens walking up the street stopped immediately to assist her and help her out of the ditch. They could have kept going, but did not hesitate for a minute to offer aid. They also stayed long enough to make sure she was okay and did not need anything else.
There was the cute little boy at the high school ball field that shared half his candy bar with my littlest grand daughter because she was standing and watching him eat it. They had never met before, but ended up playing for the entire time we were at the game.
I know these aren’t huge events, but they are the ones that remind us that most of the time there is a lot of good around us. Those things often get lost in our rush to report the news. The nice thing about writing for a small town newspaper is that it can cover the positive aspects of our community.
We do have “bad ” news sometimes like lay-offs or fugitives on the loose, but most of what the paper can focus on is the progress and highlights of the area.
I would like to recognize other acts of kindness you may have observed in the community. Yes, I am stealing a bit from another columnist in a different paper, but it is nice to remind each other how much we appreciate and recognize the humanity we observe each day.
So write or e-mail me with your contributions and I will compile them into a column. Don’t forget to add the correct amount of postage if you send it snail mail.