I dropped my daughter off at the train station this evening. High on the wall of Union Train Station in downtown Portland, the sign above the lobby store said: Parcels, News, Cigars. After my daughter boarded her train, I wandered over to see if Parcels were the same as Sundries.
A little boy, maybe 9 years old, waited on an old wooden bench and watched as his grandmother shuffled back from the lobby store, clutching a dripping ice cream cone. When she finally reached him, he grabbed on and said "thanks, Gramma." She sat down with a huff that rattled the bench and the ice cream promptly fell on to the boy's shoe. He looked like he wanted to cry, but in that split second of reaction to losing that hard won ice cream, you could also see his face register - he was too old to cry.
One bench over, a woman with a lap-full of toddler, grabbed a handful of baby wipes, tucked her little one under her arm, walked over to the little boy and wiped the ice cream off his shoe. She didn't say anything about: cleaning up kid-splatter was a reflex.
Just a few feet away, a grubby man in sagging, dirty jeans, (he looked homeless), had been asking people who walked by, "hey, can you spare some change?" He saw it all go down: the old lady's struggle to walk with a cone for her grandson, the fall of the ice cream, the splat on the shoe, the little boy's restraint from having a total ear-piercing tantrum, the woman cleaning up a child she didn't know. He looked like he hadn't eaten lately yet he walked over to the ice cream store, unloaded his change and bought that kid another ice cream.
He carried the napkin-wrapped cone over to the little boy and said, "Hey lil buddy, here you go. That ought to make you feel better." You could tell by looking at the grandma's face she was thinking, " eating ice cream that guy just touched is probably not a good idea." But instead,she said: "go ahead, honey, enjoy it." As the little boy happily dug into the cone, the old lady looked up at the homeless guy she said, "Well aren't you just the sweetest thing?"
That was damn near Rockwellian. I wanted to kiss for not saying, "No, thank you" to that homeless guy. That would have broken my heart. As I was walking away, a couple was walking up to talk to the homeless guy. I don't think this do-goodery chain was anywhere near over.
Sometimes, all it takes is a little ice cream to save the world.
That's my favorite so far
Posted by: Jerome | August 09, 2010 at 04:49 PM
The story was interesting..I enjoyed it throughout the reading..And you are right too..Sometimes it takes some mere things to save the world..
Posted by: Diamond Core Drill | November 23, 2011 at 12:59 AM