Little Heroic Acts by Others that have Made my Day.

Perhaps you see God at work in your daily life. Or Lady Luck? Random Acts of Kindness?  I’d love to hear what makes your day.

In Cleft Heart: Chasing Normal, I’ve related some of   the amazing things that happened to me as I hitch-hiked and ship-hiked around the world in my youth. In the next few posts, I will share some vignettes about heroic kindness that I left out of my book.

A screech of tires, a door flung open, and another random act of kindness.  Whenever I accepted rides during my hitchhiking days, especially in Europe, I marveled at the generosity of drivers and   others in the car with them. Sure, some drivers stopped for me for want of companionship, and more than a few out of the many rides I got showed too much interest in me, or more often, in a female partner I might have had along at the time.  Still, the cumulative effect of all the random acts of kindness allowed a cash-strapped vagabond first to see New England, then Old England, Europe, and finally points beyond like Morocco, the Philippines, and Hawaii a few years after it became a state.

In Morocco, for example, a Citroen stopped for me on the outskirts of Tangier where I’d begun a journey along the west coast of the country. Inside the small car, I found the driver not only personable but an inveterate do-gooder.  Of mixed European and Moroccan descent, he had dedicated his life to bringing water to parched towns in the deserts of Morocco.

Outside of the city of Rabat, my host insisted on treating me to a native meal of couscous and herbs. He said that he knew I could use a free meal because I looked thin and raggedy. He’d seen very few Americans in such “sad shape” to use his words. This kindness in a country marked by extreme poverty at the time overwhelmed me. During lunch, my host enthused about his dream of some day launching a mammoth engineering project to bring fresh water to all towns in the Moroccan desert.

Next post: a couple of amazing hitchhiking tales.

For information about random acts of kindness (RAKs), go to www.randomactsofkindness.org.

Why not share RAKs you’ve been a party to . . . as a giver or a recipient?

My latest book, PRIVILEGED KILLERS, is a true story about a half-dozen Dark Triad people in my everyday life - narcissists, manipulators, and psychopaths. Three of 'em murdered people, and one came after my wife and me. Print and e-book versions of this (and CLEFT HEART) available at Amazon and elsewhere online. Also at your local bookstore.