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Two Tales of
Christmas Spirit
A song in the movie The Grinch asks, “Where are you, Christmas? Why can’t I find you?”
Sometimes it shows up where you least expect it as I witnessed just the other day. A homeless man, bearded and bedraggled and sadly appearing to be in mental disarray as well, was yelling angrily at every passerby who came with 20 yards of him near a walkway at a local park.
Naturally, people began keeping their distance. And then came an exception. A teenage boy on a bike approached the man, not too close, but near enough to get barked at fiercely before riding away.
A good while later, maybe half an hour, the teen returned. He had pedaled some four miles, roundtrip, to McDonald’s to buy a gift meal for the distressed man.
The scene, which I watched unfold from afar, brightened my day and Holiday Season as I hope it does yours. It also brought to mind another Christmastime encounter I witnessed a number of years ago that I still share whenever someone complains about today’s youth.
It was past 1 o’clock in the morning when I stopped at a 24-hour Ventura doughnut shop on my way home from a Lakers game. The parking lot was a ghost town except for four shadowy figures loitering on the sidewalk near the shop’s entrance.
As I approached I could see there were three boys and girl, all teens, all with numerous tattoos and piercings. I stereotypically judged these books by their covers, especially as they stood hauntingly in a semicircle around an elderly man, cold and coatless and barefoot, and seated on the sidewalk.
I went inside to get a blueberry muffin, all the while keeping a worried eye on the group outside. Nothing seemed to be happening until…
… I walked back outside. Then, as ominously as pirates ordering a prisoner to walk the plank at gunpoint, I heard the troublesome-looking teens tell the old man to stand up and walk.
“Uh-oh!” I thought.
My next thought was that I had misjudged these four buccaneers, and greatly so.
“How do those feel?” one of the boys asked. “Do they fit?”
The homeless man took a few measured steps, stopped, looked at his feet, made an about-face and returned to the quartet.
“These ones fit real good,” the cold man answered, flashing a smile that warmed the winter night.
The teens, in unison, smiled back.
“Keep them. They’re yours,” the same boy as before replied. “I want you to have them.”
Glancing down I saw the speaking teen was now barefoot. He had given the man in need his expensive skateboarding sneakers and socks as well.
The other two boys sat on their skateboards, retying their shoes. It seems that they, too, had let the man try on their sneakers to find which pair best fit him. The girl, meanwhile, gave her hooded sweatshirt to the cold man.
Halfway to my car I made a U-turn and went back inside the shop and picked out an assortment of a dozen doughnuts while sharing what I had just witnessed outside. Time and again, the Christmas spirit is more contagious than coronavirus and this was such a time. The woman worker not only wouldn’t let me pay for the doughnuts, she added a free jumbo coffee for the cold man.
“These are from the lady inside,” I said, delivering the treats. “Have a nice night.”
The man with new shoes and a sweatshirt grinned appreciatively.
“You have a nice night, too,” one of the teens replied.
I already had.
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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …
- Personalized signed copies are at WoodyWoodburn.com
