Newspaper Page Text
thing for his efforts, but he declined. I then tried to
give him gas money; again he refused. He simply
wanted me to pass on the generosity if I got the
opportunity,” Fluck says.
Perez does not realize the act of kindness he provid
ed that day, Fluck says. “Not only did he assist my son
with a sofa, he showed my son that there are truly com
passionate people in the world, and we must strive to
pass it on to others."
A giving spirit
Years ago, a newly single friend of Beth R. Kite
ley of Longmont, Colo., commented she didn’t
have money to buy her children a Christmas tree. 1
"I knew she wouldn’t take a handout from me, so I I
put a$ 10 bill in a Christmas card and sent it to her 1
anonymously,” Kiteley says.
Unwittingly, Kiteley’s generosity multiplied
itself. “She showed me what real generosity is. Next
time I saw her, she was so excited. ‘Someone sent us
a gift,’ she said. ‘Ten dollars! So I bought a small
tree for the kids and gave the other $5 to my friend
so she could get one, too.’”
Restaurant rescue
When Mary Beth Lenzini’s daughter was 6, the
youngster announced that she would treat her mother
to a meal at a newly opened fast food restaurant. “We
walked the few blocks together as she proudly clutched
her bulging little wallet,” Lenzini says.
After placing their order for hamburgers, fries,
and a drink, the bill totaled $5.85. The little girl
carefully counted out all her money—which
amounted to less than $1 in change. “1 should have
checked on her finances before, but I hadn’t, and I
did not have one cent with me,” says Lenzini of
Palmyra, Mo. (pop 3,467).
‘To my rescue came another diner who overheard
the exchange and swept gallantly forth with, Allow
me.’ He saved a special mother/daughter outing with
that kind gesture."
Gift of friendship
Dec. 24,1961, dawned snowy and cold and Colleen
Purves awakened to find the youngest of her six chil
dren, Jeff, 9 months, very ill. Her Air Force family
recently had transferred to Pease Air Force base in
Portsmouth, N.H., from a three-year overseas tour of
duty in Japan and Okinawa, and her husband had been
sent to a training school for three months.
“I called Dorothy Malcolm, the only person I knew
at the time, and told her of my concern. She came right
over, told me to take him to the base hospital, and not
to worry about anything else,” Purves says.
Purves made the 25-mile drive to the hospital that
morning and stayed at the hospital all day while her baby
was treated for bronchial pneumonia. Mother and son
arrived home exhausted about 9 p m.
Kindest father on Earth'
When Marilyn Sowers’ best childhood friend lost
her eyeglasses, the friend’s mother did not have the
money to replace them. “I mentioned this in passing
to my father; who went to see the optometrist and
explained the situation to him,” says Sowers of Good
land, Kan. (pop. 4,948).
The optometrist made another pair of glasses iden
tical to the lost ones. “When the glasses arrived, my
father took them to the high school and told the sec
retary to call my friend to the office and tell her that
her glasses had been found," Sowers recalls.
“My friend never knew the true story and neither
did I, until years later the optometrist told me
» how I had been blessed with the kindest
B father on Earth—Bob Nelson of
Colby, Kan.” (pop. 5,450).
“What I found astonished me beyond words. My
children had been bathed and fed and were asleep in their
beds. Christmas gifts had been wrapped and placed
beneath the tree. The children’s stockings had been filled.
My house was immaculate, and a huge pot of homemade
soup was simmering on the stove,” says Purves, now of
Lander, Wyo. (pop. 6,867).
Dorothy and her husband, Kenneth, of Hamp
ton, N.H., (pep. 14,937) had their own young A
children and Christmas duties to attend to, but i
they reached out in a time of crisis, Purves says.
“They gave me a gift that I have treasured
for a lifetime—a gift of the real meaning of
Christmas,” she says. “This was one magnif
icent act of kindness toward a very lonely and B
frightened Air Force wife.”
Cut rate 1
Sheri Caltrider, an English teacher in
Hartsville, S.C. (pop. 7,566) every year asks her
high school students to make
a daily entry in
their journals
about of
kindness they fl
performed the *
day before.
Tins she B
senrusasam- ft’ . ’
pling of their favorites. These are small acts, but even
the smallest are remembered, and their ripples spread
endlessly as from a pebble dropped in a pond. One
involves Charles W. Luther, 18, who usually cuts grass
for about S2O, a goodly sum for a teenager, but Luther
cut his rate for one customer —a friend of his moth
er’s—when he learned that her husband had been kid
off from his job.
“When I got through with the yard, I went in to tell
her I was done,” Luther wrote. “The neighbor handed
me a S2O bill,” but the boy refused payment, knowing
the family needed every dollar at the moment.
Warm welcome
Lezley Gehman and her 13-month-old daughter
were spending their first night in their new home in
Sayre, Pa. (pop. 5,813). Her husband and another
daughter would arrive the next day.
After a day of unpacking and cleaning, she took her
daughter out to dinner at a small local family restau
rant. “An elderly couple a few tables away kept waving
to my daughter, making feces at her, and pkying peek
a-boo. They were not close enough for us to establish a
dialogue, but when they got up to leave, they’ waved
goodbye,” Gehman says.
When they finished their meal and Gehman asked
for the bill, the waitress told her that the couple had
paid it. “I almost cried,” Gehman says. “No one had
ever done something as nice as this for me before. That
it was our first night in the town that was to become
our home made it even more meaningful. I truly felt
welcomed to the neighborhood and knew that I was
going to like this new place."
it '
iatevi
■■ ■■ ’
Profile
Page 7