Excerpted from WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

 

Chapter 22: FRIENDLINESS

 

“If we magnified blessings as much as we magnify disappointments,

 we would all be much happier.”

– John Wooden

 

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When I am running it is my nature to smile and give a “runner’s nod” or quick wave to others I encounter on the roads, trails and bike paths. In more intimate social situations, as with many writers, I am a bit introverted. However, Coach Wooden helped me become more outgoing with a folksy story from his life. It remains one of my favorites.

*  *  *

On the way to the airport after a weeklong stay in Southern California, the visitor from the Midwest complained to his transplanted host: “John, I honestly don’t know how you can stand to live here. No one is friendly here like they are back home.”

 

“Sure they are,” the host answered. “What do you mean?”

 

“I mean I’ve been here an entire week and not a single person out on the street or sidewalks has said ‘Hi’ to me.”

 

“Did you say ‘Hello’ to them?” asked the host.

 

“Well, no, because I didn’t know any of them.”

 

John Wooden, the host for his visiting Hoosier friend, shared this anecdote – this life lesson – with me more than a couple times. Each retelling was punctuated by a wry smile.

 

                  I was reminded of this story when I traveled to West Lafayette, Indiana to visit Dallas at Purdue University, Wooden’s alma mater, which is only ninety miles from Coach’s hometown of Martinsville. For good reason Purdue proudly claims “Johnny” as its favorite son to this day.

 

                  Back to Wooden’s story about the visitor and friendliness. I would like to share a few scenes that played out during my small-town Indiana trip.

 

                  At the airport, from across a large room an elderly woman asked the airline workers if they had someone who could help with her luggage. When no response came, she asked again, more loudly, and in more distress. This time an airline worker yelled back, his voice cold and uncaring: “No, ma’am!”

 

                  In a blink, a traveler in the middle of a long line gave up his place to go assist the woman. The friendliness did not end there. When the Good Samaritan returned to the end of the line, the person at the very front beckoned him to go before her – which, incidentally, was much further ahead than where he had been standing before he went to help. What is more, the rest of the people in line warmly waved him forward.

 

                  Also I saw this: A mother in a parking lot with a small child balanced on one hip, a bag of groceries in the other arm and car keys apparently misplaced in her purse. In stepped another woman who kindly lent a helping hand and also took her shopping cart to the return rack.

 

                  Another example: A gentleman in a suit and tie raced out of a bagel shop for about one hundred yards in pursuit of a young woman pushing a stroller in order to give her the pacifier her baby had dropped.

 

                  And another: A boy, no older than eight, was a quarter short paying for a smoothie and began searching his pockets for more change. A stranger behind him, college-aged, reached into his own pocket and handed the needed coin to the cashier. A small thing, yes, but it mattered to the young boy.

 

                  Lastly: Hellos from strangers; friendly smiles in passing; small talk and small acts of kindness. There is nothing like Hoosier hospitality – except that all of the above travel-day scenes happened in Ventura and Los Angeles International Airport before I arrived in Indiana.

 

                  As Civil War Union General Joshua Chamberlain observes in Michael Shara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Killer Angels: “Home. One place is like another, really. Maybe not. But the truth is it’s all just rock and dirt and people are roughly the same.”

 

                  Coach Wooden knew this well. Sometimes you just have to say “Hello” first.

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Excerpted from WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

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