GatewayRedbirds.com

It's easy in today's world to think there is no good left. I know I'm guilty myself. I know I've said it here many times that people are inherently bad. It's not true, it's just a mood I get in or maybe the environmental factors get me a little too much. I've had an amazing week.

As you guys know my Dad had major surgery this week. I was scared to death of what would happen. Partly because I'm selfish and partly because I didn't want to see him go through pain, trauma, and the long recovery. His care has been amazing. His nurses are so good, the doctor has been so good, and just the general staff at the hospital has been so good. I could name instances for days but two big huge things stick out. First at Barnes there is this thing they call the link. It goes from the South Tower all the way to our hotel on the North East side of the campus. The first night we were there we were getting ready to go to the hotel and the nurse says I'm off in a few minutes if you want to wait I'll walk you there to make sure you navigate it ok. That is seriously going above and beyond in my opinion. The second came on day three. My Dad had a very rough day. I won't go into it but it was rough. One of the cleaning ladies comes and puts her arm around me and says "why don't you come with me to the waiting room and take a break." So I did. She walks me down there, buys me a soda, and just puts her arm around me and talks to me like 20 minutes. She was amazing. I tried to pay her for the soda but she wasn't having it. Turned the whole day around. Might have saved the week.

The hotel staff is amazing. Super nice, super caring. I didn't know it but you get a better rate if you have a loved on in the hospital. So yesterday I was just chatting with the manager lady while I was getting some juice and she says "oh your Dad is in the hospital? Did you tell us that? Did you get the cheaper rate?" I told her I didn't know anything about. Well she said that she might only be able to get it to me for the remainder of our stay, which was fine I guess. Not her fault I didn't know about it. Well today I came in after visiting hours and she told me she was able to go back and give me the rate for the entire stay. It's going to save me like $400.

The short version:

There are amazing people in this world.

Good to hear things are going ok.

there are some real jack asses out there.

I know. I'm one of them.

I'll second the care & treatment of the Barnes staff. My mom was there for almost a month before she passed away in their extended care facility.

Leroy wrote:I know. I'm one of them.

From this day forth I'm modeling my life after you Leroy . I hope you write a blog so I can get some tips.

now that was a classic leroy post

I actually see a lot riding public transportation that reaffirms my faith in humanity.

I see people helping out by giving others money if they are struggling to find enough change to pay their fare.

I see women get on the bus with a kid or two who just start wandering around while she tries to get all of the money into the machine (those things can be a P.I.T.A. at times) and strangers will just grab the kid and put them in the seat next to them and occupy them until the girl is done and the kid can sit with her.

One of the worst things I saw was combined with one of the best too. One evening a girl snatched a guy's phone as she was getting off and started running. The guy and another person took off after the girl and the guy eventually caught her half a block away. The driver called it in and didn't leave until the guy got back and said it was OK, he didn't want the police called and he was fine. He caught her and said that if she gave the phone back, they would both just walk away so she did. Well, he had literally fallen off of the bus otherwise he would have caught her in 10 steps. The next thing I know, half of the bus is cleaning this guy's scrapes and bandaging his hand up! One person had bandages. Another had something to clean it with. I almost had to laugh because nobody had an entire first aid kit but combined they were able to put it together and patch the guy up. The girl trying to steal his phone wasn't positive but the other guy trying to help chase her down and all of the people wanting to help patch the guy up and make sure he was OK was nice to see.

I have seen a guy who just got out of prison in the county (shoe laces were still in a bag) talking to an off duty sheriff about they system and how inefficient things were that ended with the sheriff and the guy who just got out shaking hands and wishing each other luck when the sheriff got off of the bus.

People getting up to offer older people their seats on a packed bus.

Just so many little things that aren't significant but they outweigh any of the bad that I've seen on a bus or train by far especially since the kindest people I tend to see are also the ones that are most likely the poorest and least fortunate.

Of course then there was the time that people were lined up to get on the bus and the bus went past the line a bit and as people moved up an old white guy thought a group of young black kids were trying to jump in front of me. The bus just happened to stop closer to them. They weren't trying anything. But of course the old white guy tells them to not jump in line and then makes a comment about how they should have to go to the back of the bus as he boarded. I wanted to grab him and throw him off the bus into the middle of the street. I was livid. Those kids didn't even bat an eye even though I know they heard it. So I let them on before me just to make grandpa mad.

Actually, the most disrespectful people I see on public transportation tends to be white people who are clearly from the suburbs. Like the kid on the Eureka Express each morning who just takes up the entire section on one side lounging with his feet up on the seats. Somebody else has to sit there at some point, keep your feet off of the seat jerkface!!! On the other routes I ride, people would politely tell him to mind his manners, I've seen it a few times.

And it was followed up last night by a lady taking a sympathy card around for the normal bus driver who's father passed the other day. Of course this was the Eureka Express and this was an older white lady who referred to him as 'our Serbian bus driver' so that kind of tempers the good feelings. I'm not sure if she even knows his name or just referred to him that way because I'm not on the bus with them every day and figured I might not know who she was referring to by name.

Was at McDonald's to grab dinner because I was in a rush last night and some guy was begging for change so he could get some food. I told him that I didn't have any cash on me (I didn't) and then decided that I'd just offer to buy the guy something so I made the offer. His choice... pancake platter. Literally just about the cheapest thing on the menu and didn't want anything else. I wasn't expecting that. So when the cashier asked if I wanted sausage with that, I said heck yes.

tlombard wrote:Was at McDonald's to grab dinner because I was in a rush last night and some guy was begging for change so he could get some food. I told him that I didn't have any cash on me (I didn't) and then decided that I'd just offer to buy the guy something so I made the offer. His choice... pancake platter. Literally just about the cheapest thing on the menu and didn't want anything else. I wasn't expecting that. So when the cashier asked if I wanted sausage with that, I said heck yes.

That's awesome!