By The Way, “I Like Your Hat.”

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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By The Way,

“I Like Your Hat.”

            My late mentor and longtime steward of this space, Chuck Thomas, believed in taking the day off now and again and filling his column with words borrowed from others. In this spirit, here are three stories I read recently that I hope will lift your spirits as they did mine.

Christine Turel, who works at an independent bookstore, shared this encounter:

“Middle of the day this little old lady comes up. Then this college kid comes up in line behind her. She turns around to him and, out of nowhere, demands that he put his textbooks on the counter. He’s confused, but she explains she’s going to buy his textbooks.

“He goes sheetrock white. He refuses and adamantly insists she can’t do that. It’s like, $400 worth of textbooks. She, this tiny old woman, boldly takes them out of his hands, throws them on the counter and turns to me with an intense stare and tells me to put them on her bill. The kid at this point is practically in tears. He’s confused and shocked and grateful. Then she says ‘you need chocolate.’ She starts grabbing handfuls of chocolates and puts them in her pile.

“He keeps asking her, ‘Why are you doing this?’ She responds, ‘Do you like Harry Potter?’ and throws a copy of the new Cursed Child on the pile, too.

“Finally she’s done and I ring her up for a crazy amount of money. While I’m bagging up her merchandise, the kid hugs her.

“She turns to both of us and says probably one of the most profound, unscripted things I’ve ever had someone say: ‘It’s important to be kind. You can’t know all the times that you’ve hurt people in tiny, significant ways. It’s easy to be cruel without meaning to be. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can choose to be kind.’ ”

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This came from a Facebook post by “The ‘Pay It Forward’ Effect”:

“As I was pulling into work, I was following this car. The sign in the back window says, ‘Learning stick sorry for any delay.’

“Knowing this information, I was very patient with their slow shifting. Then I asked myself a tough question: Would I have been just as patient if the sign hadn’t been there? I can almost definitely say no.

“We don’t know what someone is going through. We don’t wear signs that illustrate our personal struggles. We don’t see signs taped to people’s shirts that say, ‘Going through a divorce’ or ‘Lost a child’ or ‘Feeling depressed’ or ‘Diagnosed with cancer.’

“But we shouldn’t have to see signs and have reasons to treat strangers with kindness. We should do it anyway, whether we know what is going on or not.”

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A brief essay by Danusha Lameris titled “Small Kindness” echoes the wisdom above:

“I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Of how strangers still say ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. ‘Don’t die,” we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up.

“We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, ‘Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead – you first,” “I like your hat.”

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By the way, dear reader, I like your hat.

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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” …