Kindness Comes Back to Us

Last week I went swimming to the pool I go to in Watsonville. Watsonville is just ten minutes away from us, but when I enter it I feel like I have just stepped into Mexico. Mostly Spanish is spoken, though people understand English. Lately there have been quite a few gang related killings in Watsonville. Most of the gangs are young men from Mexico. The police are overly suspicious and are always on the look out for trouble.

This day I did not allow enough time for my swim and was hurrying to get to the pool. I looked at the gas gauge and realized it was almost empty. Oh darn, another delay. I pulled into the local 7/11 and went in to buy my gas. There were two people in line in front of me. The first, a woman, was slowly pulling out nickels and dimes from her purse to pay for the beer she was buying. It was taking forever. The second was a young man dressed in black with a black beanie hat. He looked at me and with a heavy Spanish accent said, "You look like you are in a hurry. It would bring me alot of pleasure to let you go in front of me." I thanked him profusely and he just smiled at me. I walked out of the store thinking what a nice man he was.

In a few minutes we were both pumping our gas when a police car pulled up and the policeman got out and started hasseling this same man. It seems that there had been trouble with some young man in Watsonville and he had been wearing black with a black beanie. The policeman was starting to get aggressive with this man when I stepped right in between the two and said, "Officer you have the wrong man. This man is extremely kind and helpful. He would never cause trouble for anyone." The officer looked at me and realized I was not going to step away from my place between he and this man. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "All I have to go on are the clothes, there are probably hundreds of men with your type of clothes." He apologized to this man, shook his hand and got back in his car.

The young man and I exchanged smiles and I got in my car and drove away. I felt happy. Kindness surely does come right back.