A Little Renewed Hope in Humanity

Got a call Thursday night about 7 p.m. from "Josè" about the used bike I had for sale on Craigslist for $50, the Upland beach cruiser, which turned out to be not a good choice of a bicycle for me. He spoke with a pronounced Hispanic accent, and although his English was adequate, it was halting at times as he searched for the correct word or phrase. He said he was from Lehigh Acres, about 20 miles from me (give or take), and he wanted to look at the bicycle, and said he would call the next day to get directions.

Bigoted visions starting appearing in my head about how this would play out, like how was this guy going to get here (no car?), and would he try to pay me off in oranges or tomatoes. I figured I would not hear from him again.

By god, I got a call from him the next morning, asking for directions, and I directed him to the strip mall by my apartment, and asked if he could meet me in front of the "Dollar General" store. (This, by the way, had nothing to do with his ethnicity; it is just common sense to avoid meeting people at your place of residence, regardless of who they purport to be.) There at the Dollar General store, I said, he could ride the bike around the parking lot.

He shows up at the appointed time and place in a pickup truck with another guy, whom he introduces as "Dave," and I notice immediately there is something "off" about Dave, as he does not speak or extend his arm for a handshake. When I was a kid, we would call these folks a certain word that began with an "R", but now we are supposedly more enlightened and don't use that word any more, although I confess to really hating the terms "special" and "gifted," but that is a discussion for another time and place. Anyway, I think you get the gist of what I am saying, and it dawns on me that this is playing out in an entirely different way.

As Dave takes off on the bicycle, Josè explains to me that he is trying to help this young man get pointed in the right direction, and this bicycle will be Dave's mode of transportation for a part-time job, which Josè is helping Dave to obtain.

I literally felt a lump in my throat, and as Dave was tooling around the parking lot like the proverbial kid with a new toy, I asked Josè how much he could afford to pay for the bicycle. He told me that it was actually Dave's money that he had earned, and that they were hoping they could get the bike for 40 bucks.

Sold.

Josè pulled out two wrinkled twenties from his billfold that he was holding for Dave, which no doubt were hard earned at some god-awful job like mucking out horse stalls or degreasing a Harley engine or something equally disgusting. Josè told Dave that they now had $10 left to buy a chain and lock for it.

First of all, I got a nice whack upside the head as a reminder to never judge a book by its cover. And, second, what an awesome thing that this Josè fellow, who by all appearances isn't exactly living the life of Riley himself (but then again ...), is taking time out to help this guy ... and a white guy to boot.

OK, I'm not breaking out in strains of "We are the world ..." or anything like that, but this is the kind of stuff that makes me pause and wonder if maybe the world isn't headed down the toilet after all. I think my only regret is that I just didn't give the damn bike to the guy. But I guess I feel good enough that Dave has a good bike, a safe bike, and will hopefully put it to good use.

Anyway, Friday started out with me feeling a little better from my bout of intestinal distress the last couple of days. I biked over to the farmer's market, where I had a delicious breakfast of a bagel breakfast sandwich, a pint of strawberries, and a cup of coffee. I met briefly with my bicycle friends, then biked back to the apartment to meet up with Josè.

After that, I checked out a lead I had received on a jewelry/watch store that advertised it offered watch repair services. It was just up the street from me on McGregor Blvd., and was a small (but tidy) shop in a tiny 3-store strip mall. The proprietor's name is Ben. He is into vintage watches in a pretty big way, and turns out we had actually made contact by phone several years ago when I was searching for a watchmaker. We hit is off instantly. The guy had a nice display of vintage watches in one his display cases, along with a really cool collection of antique watchmaker's tools in an old beautiful oak stand-alone cabinet. He told me that if I needed a few watches serviced while I was down here wintering in Fort Myers, that he would help me out. That's all I needed to hear, and went back to my apartment and fetched a couple of watches that needed cleaning, and brought them back to the guy. He told me he would have them ready by next week. How great is that to have made that contact?

After that, I drove over to the Fleamasters flea market. I wanted to return a book to "Chris the Book Guy" so he could resell it, but other than that I really didn't need anything (other than some lunch) but just wanted to get out and enjoy the day, and celebrate not only my little happy experience with Josè, but just feeling better physically. I had a nice lunch, visited with a couple of my vendor "buds," and came back to the apartment. I stopped at the European deli at the strip mall by my place, and bought a half pound of fresh Polish sausage and cooked it up some green peppers and onions, and ate it on a hard roll with some brown mustard. Delicious.

So that brings you up to date. Don't know what I'll do this weekend yet. Options abound, but I don't think they will include watching the Superbowl on Sunday, especially now that the commercials are available on Youtube.

Bruce