The kindest thing anyone's ever done for you?

I was a new staffer, still on probation, when I had to call my bureau chief at about 3am to bail me and two other staffers from jail. Not only did he raid his kid's piggy bank and bail us out by 7am but he worked some magic to keep it out of the papers, too. The next day, he made up fake wanted posters for the three of us and plastered them all over the bureau walls. He also put electrical tape "bars" covering our cubby hole mail boxes. The disorderly conduct charges were later nollied thanks to my eloquence before the judge.

 

I had a great aunt who died when I was in sixth grade. She was very crotchety and not very nice to the family, the children included. Whatever we did generally wasn't good enough. Lots of yelling, especially at holidays. I was a really good athlete, but yeah that didn't matter because I couldn't play an instrument - again never good enough.

When I graduated from high school my parents informed me, my aunt had willed my brother and I a substantial amount of money. It paid for my entire college education - four years of tuition, books room and board at a Big Ten university. My brother's too.

 

The unfortunate part of my story is that the editor in question was the most unappreciated guy in the office. We had a SE and four deputies/assigning editors and he was the only one who was in the building after 8 p.m. and was usually there at deadline.

He cared more about the section and the people who worked there than the other four managers combined. The other four editors are all very high up at large papers, with a couple of them being extremely well-known nationally. A couple of them are great guys, but nowhere close to the level of the editor in question, who was run out of the business just a few years after saving my ass.

 

Her name was Linda. She was from Long Beach Long Island. I was 14. She was 16.

 

My sister set me up on a blind date with her next-door neighbor, whom she had just met and hit it off with. I was pushing 27, and hadn't had a serious relationship in more than five years. Before that first date was over, I knew she was the one. We celebrate our 27th anniversary next month and we're as much in love now as we ever were. I can never thank my sister enough for hooking us up.

 

I'm so glad this thread has brought out some great stories.

This may not be Double Down's song memories thread, but I'm glad it's having some positive impact.

 

When I was 15, I was working for a farmer who'd been hired to brush hog a 1,400-acre county park. I was driving an old tractor that, unbeknownst to me, had a leaky fuel line. Diesel plus spark plugs = big explosion. I jumped off the tractor and was on fire. Well, luckily just my left leg was.

I stopped, dropped and rolled. Two golfers were on a fairway about 100 yards away. Somehow, they got to me before I stopped rolling. They stayed with me and one rode in the ambulance with me to the hospital. Twenty seven years later, I can remember their faces. I can remember the one in the ambulance was wearing a white Lacoste polo shirt. But nobody ever got their names. Even the guys at the pro shop didn't know who they were.

Much further down the list, but one I still think about often was when an elderly couple paid for dinner for me, my date and another couple the night of our senior prom. They said we all looked so pretty and happy dressed in our formal attire. They made us promise to one day buy dinner for some kids out for prom. I've done it a few times now (especially when I see the small-town kids having prom dinner at a Chili's or other chain) and I tell them to do the same thing when they're adults.

 

Nowadays, Ink, the kids probably think you're some perv and call Chris Hansen. Different world.

Anyhoo, not any single kindness, but many kindnesses done by folks at the children's hospital where our daughter spent almost all of the few months of her all-too-short (but in many ways all-too-long) life.

 

Ha, my wife said the same thing a few years ago. Now I just pay the check and leave them a note, so I'm completely anonymous.

 

Great; now they won't know who's stalking them.

 

A few years ago when I was covering NASCAR full time, my dad who was in North Carolina, had a heart attack. We were at Phoenix at the time; my sister calls and tells me the news, and adds that he has to go into surgery and the docs were saying he had a better then even chance of not coming out of it and they were calling the family together to see him prior to the surgery. I was a mess, no idea what to do. A big time driver hears about it, comes walking into the tiny little media center, tells me to pack everything up; long story short; they flew me home on the team plane, arranged for a police escort from the airport to the hosptial, I got there in time to see him; he lived but was never the same and passed away a year later.