This afternoon at about 5pm, rush hour, I was heading home from the grocery store. I was in town at the time. Ahead of me was a man on a motorcycle. We were traveling at about 25mph. He began to turn right, apparently unaware of the loose gravel on the blacktop. Well the next thing I saw was him laying down the cycle on the gravel. Well I immediately stopped and headed for the cycle. In about 10 seconds, about 6 cars had stopped, and as we were lifting the cycle from his foot a women, elderly, stopped and held out a cell phone and said can I call anyone. Someone asked him if he was ok and he said he thought so.

At that point I left because there were about 10 people there to help. I was impressed that all those folks stopped and were willing to help. I hope if I ever need some help those same folks are around again.

-- Bob Wick (bjwick@hotmail.com), July 25, 2001

Answers

Hey, that almost beats the time some guy in a truck ran my brother (who was on a bike) off the road, then stopped and threatened him because when he rammed into the guys fender, he dented it. My brother is over 6' tall and over 200 lbs, and normally this guy would have been breathing gravel shortly after such a threat, but he was kinda dazed (no wonder, he'd just been rammed by a pickup truck). But the guy behind the truck saw what happened, stopped, and got out of his car - with baseball bat in hand. The idiot driving the truck didn't hang around long ... LOL!!

-- Sojourner (notime4@summer.spam), July 25, 2001.

Last night at the grocery store I had two items and was third in line behind a couple of guys with a full cart who appeared as though they had spent the earlier part of their evening changing a transmission. While they were talking one glanced back at me at me and said, "Go ahead of us. You've only got two things there." The other pulled their cart back so I could step in front of them.

When the young, pierced cashier rang up my items they totalled $10.06. I handed him a ten dollar bill and reached into my pocket for some change. When I realized I had none and told him he'd have to take it out of $11 as I pulled off a single, this young man told me, "Don't worry about it. I've got six cents." and reached into his own pocket and dumped the change into the drawer. Needless to say, I walked out of there feeling pretty uplifted about life in general because of those moments at the checkout line. ;o)

-- Gary in Indiana (gk6854@aol.com), July 26, 2001.

Call me overly optomistic but I really believe that, for the most part, people are still good at heart. It is just so masked over now days with money, stress, everyone working 60+ hours a week, schools raising our children, etc. You have to do all the those in order for the average person still on the sidewalks to make a living to just keep a roof over thier families heads and food on the table. Then if you want the new SUV, hottest computer, and bigger house you REALLY have no life other than work. It is just the way of life now..not that people's hearts have changes so much. They are just misdirected. They have no time to teach thier children manners and a sense of responsibility because it is all they can do to get themselves through the day in one piece. It is the price of the almighty dollar. Every dollar we make costs us 10 times that much in lost morals or family obligations.

As bad as things get, I still see when a disaster hits all the people out there to help and how everyone just forgets all about the "material things" and does go to the aid of thier fellow man. Often we ask why God allows some of these disasters, maybe that is why....to remind us we still do need each other and that the guy next door hurts the same as we do and so does his neighbor or the guy in India or the guy in China, etc. Hey look at the forums...we all dispute, debate, sometimes down right fight..but when someone needs help or encouragement...there we are for them! Go figure! It has probally always been like that.

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), July 26, 2001.

I agree, there are a lot of very fine people out there. But, that doesn't make good news stories. I believe that I should trust everyone---carefully, until they prove that I shouldn't trust them. And, some have. But most of the time, folks are good. Doug

-- Doug in KY (toadshutes@yahoo.com), July 27, 2001.

I always try to "pass something on" because of two things. First , during the depression my grandad gave a train hobo the lions share of his pocket money when the hobo begged some lunchbox food and Grandad was getting paid in a couple days. Later when he lost his job here and left my father and grandmother on a southbound freight from the same depot, which took him to south Texas,where he was hired on a construction job and given the job of his choice by the forman , who remembered his "big ears and good nature" at the depot in Athens. The forman was the hungry hobo. Second was when I lost my wallet as a teenager with two months pay in it and the man that returned it with every dollar in it wouldn't even let me replace the gas he used on the 80 mile round trip to get it to me. The man has been one of my oldest friends though.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 04, 2001.