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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