Our catch phrase is on its way.
Dear Fellow Earthlings,
As Earth’s human population explodes, there are more and more opportunities for friction. Everyone is pushing and shoving each other as each of us has less and less space. The haves are struggling to use their wealth, power, and influence to have even more, while the have-nots seem to only wish for what they cannot have, often sinking into depression, substance abuse, and crime as a result.
Intolerance raises its ugly heads as people heretofore separated by long distances and lack of information about what was happening just over the horizon are now either forcing others to move away to lands where people’s beliefs and customs are completely unlike their own – or are the ones who are doing the forcing...
Amid all of this mad dash for Earth’s last resources there are the good ones, the considerate ones, the honest ones...
Yesterday another honest person came into my life: As he rode his bicycle through Independence, Oregon, he noted a wallet along the shoulder of the road. This man, I am told, carried the wallet to a hardware store just a few meters from where he had found the wallet. Entering the store, he asked the people there to deal with it, since he had noted the address he found inside the wallet was that of someone who lived nearby.
The address happened to be MY address, for I had inadvertently left MY WALLET on the roof of my car as I pulled out of a parking lot, thinking of how nice it would be to get back to my home and away from the maddening crowd.
The wallet eventually fell off of the car's roof and onto the shoulder of the road, where the cyclist found it.
The man asked the people in the store to "handle it”, since he was just passing through, riding his bicycle for exercise.
The people at the store called the Independence police department, who then called me and told me to come retrieve that wallet.
What elation I felt to get my wallet back, with all of its contents intact! But my deepest feeling was one of admiration for the unknown stranger on the bicycle who took the time to ask someone to “handle” the situation.
The people at the store had asked the man his name, but he just said,”Get that wallet to its owner, please. I gotta go.”
May you live long and well, kind sir! (I hasten to mention that I also appreciate how nice the people at the store were.)
Steve Walker Earthsaver and Jingles Creator
© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.