The Good Samaritan

Hector: Why are you here?

Achilles: They'll be talking about this war for a thousand years...

I was on a long distance drive and there was this particularly steep slope ahead. I could see a couple of nuns making their way up to the church at the top. The good Samaritan part of me wanted to stop and give them a ride. The other part thought that this was beginning to sound to like a really bad joke "Two nuns get into a car...". In the end, I decided it was best not to sound like a serial killer.

In the mid nineties when I used to go home for the summer, my grandpa used to take me for the occasional drive in his ancient Ambassador. It was jet black, and at first thought, you start picturing a getaway described in cop shows, "Be advised, suspect is headed North on I90 driving a black SUV". On one particular ride, I was sitting in the front. All of a sudden, he slowed the car down near a near bus stop. This particular bus stop was pretty close to the college where he used to teach. He stopped the car, rolled down the window and asked if anyone was headed to the next junction. I wasn't sure if he was speaking to someone in particular. I actually suspected he saw someone he knew in the crowd and what do you know, someone did step forward, perhaps a student or a fellow professor from yesteryear. Shortly after he got in the car, I realised from the conversation that he was an absolute stranger!

I remember my grandpa was alarmingly strict, the quintessential professor. Yet it was his resolve to car pool, in a era where global warming was unheard of. No matter how strange such acts of kindness may seem in our day and age, I'm sure it doesn't go unnoticed, even if his name is forgotten before the end of the millennium. 

Our actions echo through the ages...