03/29/2024
Spread the love

By: Jefferson Weaver

Jefferson-WeaverThe young lady was incensed. “Somebody ought to do something,” she exclaimed. Now, the crisis at hand involved a solution that wasn’t very clean, glamorous or sanitary. Nor could it be profitable in any way whatsoever, save in having done the right thing. The young lady, who I know in passing, had the skills, time, resources and finances to solve the problem herself—but she wanted someone else to do something.

Miss Rhonda and I were in the city the other day when I spotted a sticky note taped to a tourist map on a wall.

“Don’t worry. It’s gets better,” the handwritten note said, with the name of a website written across the bottom. I happened to be in a fine mood that day, but based on some of the scowls and worried looks I saw in the area, I could see how several people in the area could benefit from the slightest little gesture of kindness.

I am not suggesting we all run around hugging strangers, by any means; nor do I think every single person out there can saddle up and dramatically change the world. It would be a remarkably confusing and unproductive place if we were all to suddenly drop everything, start singing Kumbahyah, and making the next guy or girl feel better, whether they needed to or not. I personally operate better with an occasional period of extended grumpiness, but that’s just me.

Seeing that note, and remembering the young lady’s insistence that somebody needed to do something, got me to thinking: yes, somebody needs to do something. Problem is, a lot of folks don’t want to realize we are all that somebody.

We are reminded repeatedly in the Gospels and the instructive letters of the Bible to be doers of the word, not just hearers. As a Christian, I am ashamed to admit I’ve know a lot of unsaved people who were better at following those instructions than many of my brothers and sisters; at times, I have been guilty of this myself, so I know whereof I speak.

We are all somebody, and we ought to all do something.

Maybe you can’t physically change a flat tire for someone, but you could very well have a spare tire tool in the trunk. I was heartened the other day when I saw a Latino fellow whose command of the English language was on par with my Russian. He had a nail stuck in one tire, and had limped the car into a convenience store parking lot. He had just the most basic of tools, but no spare. It didn’t take long, thankfully, before someone produced a pair of pliers to remove the nail, a better jack than the one that he had to lift his vehicle, an old fashioned tire plugging kit, and a cold bottle of water.

There was no reason for anyone to stop and help him, really, save the fact that all those who did were native Southerners (we’re brought up that way) and someone saw the need to do something.

I met a young couple a while back who saved a half-grown, half-wild puppy from a busy intersection I drive through several times a week.

The puppy was the last survivor of a litter born by an abandoned mom-dog, and had evaded every attempt I knew of to catch him and get him to a safe place. The little guy was nervous, but safe in the back of their SUV. The couple was headed for a long-overdue vacation (family illness and work had kept them at home all summer).

They spotted the dog running in and out of traffic, and had the right touch to get the almost feral fellow in their vehicle. I met them when they had stopped for food and water for the poor varmint, whose trip to an emergency vet was going to further cut into a delayed holiday—but as the wife said, with tears in her eyes, “We had to do something.”

I have little use for people who do step up to the plate, hit a bumbling single, and bask in their self-created glory as if they had just knocked the series-winning home run out of the park.

We met a lady once who described how brave she was, despite her terror, when she called 911 to report a suspected criminal in her neighborhood. She was lauded and patted on the back, praised and touted by her peers—although she admitted she couldn’t get a good description because she was peering through the curtains.

By the way—that incident occurred in the same neighborhood where a grandmother started a one-woman campaign against the drug dealers on her block, shaking a finger in their faces, interrupting deals, and boldly pointing out suspects to the police when they responded to her frequent calls. She refused to let me do a story on her—not out of fear, but because she didn’t want people to think she was “puffed up.”

The two ladies could see each other’s homes, but they might as well have been a world apart.

Both were somebodies, but only one was really willing to do something.

We can’t all fight crime in the street, but we can all do something about what Cervantes called “the great illness that plagues mankind, man’s inhumanity toward man.”

We can’t, sadly, save every abandoned or orphaned animal, but anybody can buy a bag of food for a rescue group, or give $10 toward a spay and neuter program, or buy some gas for someone transporting an unwanted pet to a brand new forever home.

We can’t feed every starving person on the planet—but we can buy a hamburger for the homeless man outside the restaurant, or better still, put him to work. If he doesn’t want to work—you did your part. Can’t put him to work, or buy him a sandwich? You can help one of the groups around here that will, like New Foundations, the Pender Christian Center or any number of others. A couple loaves of bread and some packs of Kool-aid go a long way, believe it or not.

If you can’t teach a kid to read, you can, by cracky, skip lunch and buy a couple of notebooks for one of the school supply drives.

We can’t all take care of every lonely senior citizen, but we each can knock on a door once in a while and check on our neighbors, or own family, for that matter. We owe it to our preceding generations to care for them, and beside, they still have a lot to teach us, if we’ll just listen.

There’s so much that we can do, with very little money, very little effort, or even very little thought – but the key is, we have to want to be somebody, and do something.

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