Education comes in many forms including through the antics of others. This lesson came from a wonderfully quirky friend of mine who recounted a rather illicit incident while in high school. Seems she and a small cohort of friends, one confined to a wheelchair, would sometimes heist a case of beer from a local mini-mart. Prior to one such caper they were outside the mart and a homeless man, complete with odor and outfit, approaches her and asks for a quarter.
Before I go further, let me tell you a bit about my friend. She is an indomitable force. She graduated from school and with a passion for helping people she became a nurse specializing in geriatrics. But life has a way of altering our direction and she suffers a massive stroke – surviving only with the help of her best friend who performs CPR non-stop until CareFlight lands in the front yard.
While the stroke not only marginalizes her ability to walk and her ability to talk, it also takes the total knowledge of her medical training and maybe most important, it takes the ability for her to comprehend the concept of love. While she never resumes her medical career she did learn to walk again, talk again, and even to fully love again. I tell you this so you understand that when the homeless man approaches her and asks for a quarter, something she did not have on her, she turns to one of the kids with her, holds out her hand and says “give me a quarter.” If memory serves, there was a bit of back and forth regarding whether he going to give up a quarter so that she could give it to the homeless man, but she indomitably delivers that final set of words – “give me a damn quarter,” and the damn quarter changes hands from his, to hers, to the homeless man.
Several months later the same ‘cohort of friends’ gather to once again pull the same caper. Among them and most critical to the operation is the kid in a wheelchair who often has a blanket covering his lower half to keep him warm in the cool Colorado air. With the crucial coordination and planning complete, they go into the store with the largest one of the group pushing the wheelchair in and around the aisles of the store. As they approach the beer cooler several other accomplices near the front briefly distract the clerk while the beer poachers do their work. While one grabs a case of beer, the kid in the wheelchair shifts his blanket as the big guy bends down and lifts the kid up just high enough to slip the case of beer between the seat of the wheelchair and the derriere of its occupant. The big guy lowers the kid onto the case and the kid shifts the blanket back into position with no one the wiser. One person picks up and purchases something that may go good with beer and they victoriously exit the store.
They walk out the door and down the walk way, heading to a safe place to split the spoils of their take. Suddenly my friend hears a voice, “Miss! Excuse me miss, I need to talk to you.” She stops. The group stops. She turns to see a man in a three piece suit making a bee-line towards her. Her mind races; not a cop, maybe a detective who happened to be in the store and witnessed what they did? Doesn’t matter, they’re busted. She looks at the man and acknowledges his request to stop with a “Yes”.
As the man approaches her he asks a curious question, “Do you remember me?” She looks him up and down, “No, I’m sorry I don’t”. He smiles, “I asked you for a quarter several months ago and you gave me one. I had filled out an application for a job but I couldn’t mail it. I didn’t have a quarter for a stamp. You gave me that quarter and I got that job. I wanted to thank you for helping me.”
There is a lot here. The extorting of a quarter. The stealing of the beer. Underage drinking. Exploitation of a willing participant in a wheelchair (if you want to go to an extreme). While it is easy to be judgmental about the antics of a group of high school kids, that’s not part of our charter in life. What is, is to learn. Even after the kids performed their devious task, the Boss placed a man, beyond down on his luck, in front of a person whose passion for helping others is such that she coaxed a quarter from a friend to give to someone most of us would just pass on by. After the kids repeated the same ornery task months later, the Boss used that event yet again. This time to give a gift. My friend received the gift of seeing the impact of something as insignificant as a single coin can have on a person’s life. It was then re-gifted to me when she told me the story. And now, I pass it on to you in hopes it touches your soul as it did mine. Feel free to pass it on.
Copyright © 2024 G. Steven Nolte – Rights for non-commercial reproduction granted: May be copied in its entirety, but neither retyped nor edited.