What favors do you remember most?

Radrook

Radrook

Senior Member
Location
USA
By favors I mean times that you needed help and someone compassionately extended a helping hand.
 

The favour I never asked for, never expected and never knew about until someone else told me. We are still close friends and will be until the end of our time. You don't often find people like that and, when you do, I think you should cherish them always. :)
 
Maybe not the biggest favor but definitely the most memorable...I was 18 and on my first date with a girl that lived out in the country on a gravel road. It was snowy and slick and after I dropped her off at the door I was backing out of her long and very narrow driveway. There were no lights out there so it was extremely dark. Unfortunately, I backed a bit too far and one of my tires dropped into the very large and deep grader ditch on the other side of the road.

I wasn't quite stuck, so I was trying to power my 1969 Camaro muscle car out of the ditch. Because of the snow plowed up on the side of the ditch and my lack of snow tires I just couldn't get out of the ditch. Eventually, I ended getting the car totally stuck with the nose of the car pointing down in the ditch.

With my pride in my pocket I walked back up to the girl's house to meekly ask if I could call a tow truck. As it turned out they, meaning the girl and both her parents, were watching out the front window during my struggle. It turns out I has not the first or the last to suffer this same dilemma.

There is much more to this story than I will tell here that contributed to my embarrassment, but I will conclude it here by only saying the girl's father, after much struggle, helped pull me out of the ditch with his pickup truck. I could tell he was not real happy being rousted out late at night. The girl was upset, apparently she had a liking for me, and figured I would never want to go out with her again if her father laid into me for my stupidity.

It all came out well in the end because that was not our last date and 4 years later that girl and I were married. Her father was a great guy once he got to know me. Thanks Jerry for pulling me out of that ditch!!
 
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Back after we had first moved to North Dakota, we were on our way home from a trip out of town when our alternator died. We didn't realize it at the time; we just knew that the battery kept failing. An off-duty police offer noticed us stuck at an intersection, jumped our car, and followed us home to ensure we got there OK. It was so kind and helpful. We had all three kids in the car at the time, so we were extra appreciative of his help.
 
One favor I remember is from when I was 25 and had moved into the valley I live in now (though I've since moved a 45-minute drive southward). I had a 21-year od International pickup and wanted to replace brake shoes, but the drums were stubborn and I didn't have the right tool to get them off. There were two service stations in the nearest village. I went there and asked the mechanic/owner of one of them if I could borrow a puller from him.

A lot of young people had recently moved into the valley, but he'd never seen me before. He looked me in the eye and said he'd loan the tool to me if I promised to bring it back to him by 9:00am the next day. I used it and brought it back before 9. He smiled and I thanked him profusely. He took a chance with an unfamiliar kid.
 
A few decades ago, I was between briefly jobs and money was very tight. One day a blank envelope containing a $100 grocery store gift certificate appeared in our mailbox. It was an incredible blessing to our family at that time.

I never found our who gave it, but we've paid it forward many times since then. šŸ™
 
In the latter 90s, I was driving my family in a rental car on a narrow, seemingly deserted gravel road in very rural New Zealand when a tire blew. I got out and opened the trunk to get the jack, but before I could start a car pulled up, seemingly out of nowhere, and a young man got out. He nudged me aside, said something like "I'll get that", and very quickly changed the tire. I tried to offer him money, but he just smiled, wished us a good day, and drove off. I was grateful (and maybe a little shocked) but I'll certainly never forget his kind gesture. :)
 
Trish said:
The favour I never asked for, never expected and never knew about until someone else told me. We are still close friends and will be until the end of our time. You don't often find people like that and, when you do, I think you should cherish them always. :)
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Trish from Manchester who brightened up 7 days of my life in Sunny Beach recently. :)
 
Small kindnesses when I was a kid come to mind.

Various times when I had a chance to attend a local field day or go on a trip and someone would quietly give me a poke and say, ā€œput this in your pocketā€.

I try to do that every chance I get because I remember how important it was to me.

Itā€™s amazing how certain things stay with us for life.
 
When they decided to close the military base I was stationed at in the UK,
we were called in one at a time to pick our next assignment.
The ones who had been on base the longest got first pick.

The person who was scheduled first was single, of equal rank and gave me his slot telling me, 'You got a family
and should have the best choice of where to move your family.'

I picked California and he got Minot, North Dakota.

Never forgot his gesture and hope things worked out for him.
 
Most memorable is when I lived in a small mountain town and had a full-time job but no full-time sitter for my 3 little kids. Someone in town told someone in the Maidu-Nisenan village, and a Maidu lady named Marie came to see me. She said she'd come get the kids every morning and take them to her place, but she'd like me to pick them up after work.

The kids liked her right away, and so did I...I just had a really good feeling about her. Turns out she was an awesome sitter; the kids' all-time favorite. In no time, she loved them and they loved her; they loved the whole community and vice-versa. The kids were well-fed, she helped them with schoolwork, took them to kiva gatherings and story-telling, and she kept them overnight sometimes, and sometimes for whole weekends.

Thing is, she rarely took money from me. I tried to pay her every week, but she'd only take it if the kids needed something, like cough medicine or diapers and such.

I finally started taking the money to her tribal leader, Kele Tyee (I'll never forget his name). He accepted it as weekly donations to their medical clinic and their agricultural organization. It was only $25/wk but I probly helped pay for some medicines and tractors.
 
It took me a few minutes to catch on to one favor a man did me once. I got a flat on the side of the interstate in upstate New York and pulled over to change it. A man stopped by to change it for me, which was very kind of him. Then a second man stopped to supervise, which I realized was for my safety, in case the first guy turned out to be a creep, or worse. Both men were very kind.

P.S. I hadn't realized how vulnerable I was, bent over trying to loosen the lug nuts, until the first man walked around the back of the car, catching me by surprise. I was younger and more naive then.
 

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