Simple Gratitude

I was on my way out of a store yesterday and the customer in front of me was an elderly man, bent like a comma over his wheeled walker. He had on what my mother-in-law would have called dungarees. Baggy dungarees, held up by suspenders crossed in the back. He stopped to open his car door and the way to my own car was temporarily blocked. He said there was something on the bottom of his shoe and would I look. He could feel it against the pavement but couldn’t stoop over to see. Sure enough, there was a tiny pebble wedged in the tread of one of his large therapeutic walking shoes. I picked it out and he was grateful. He asked me to wait a minute and reached in his car to pull out a wooden block about three inches square. On it were these words: “1. Place block on floor, 2. Walk around block 2 times. 3. Sit down and relax. If anyone asks have you exercised today, tell them you walked around the block TWICE!” I managed a polite ha-ha, which prompted him to pull out a sheaf of papers, held together by a large paper clip. One was a recipe for coconut cream pie. The others were a bunch of what I call dad-jokes, which he proceeded to read to me one by one before he handed them over, telling me to take them with me. He was a sweet old dude and made me remember that, in spite of all the meanness in the world right now, there are still nice connections having nothing to do with politics or belief. So instead of feeling annoyed, I decided to take the high road and be grateful for the simple three-minute interaction. I looked at everything with what I hoped was sufficient interest, smiled, and turned to leave with the papers. We exchanged a quick hug and then he held out his hand for what I assumed was a parting handshake, but no. He wanted his paper clip back.

Photo courtesy Alexas_Fotos at Pixabay.com