A few years ago, I wrote a let-me-now-eat-crow column in which I explained having taken credit for a really trivial act. It seems that a local woman, attempting to buy gas at Allsup’s, asked my son, Diego, to hold her place in line at the pumps.
She’d driven up to the wrong side of the pump, and fearing she’d lose her place in line, she asked Diego to order her $4.18 worth of gas. I was already in line at the store, so Diego asked me to do the honors. Noticing the amount was 82 cents short of five dollars, I rounded up the amount. As I left Allsup’s, I saw the grateful woman and admonished her to “help the next person who needs it.” She nodded, thanked me and drove off.
As Diego and I left Allsup’s, my son set the record straight: “Dad, you probably think I paid for her gas; she gave me $4.18, and you put in 82 cents. Stop acting like such a philanthropist.”
Well, he had me there. I’d thought Diego had underwritten most of the purchase and I’d added the extra change. My contribution enabled the woman to drive about 260 feet farther than if I hadn’t put in my share.
We still joke about my Rockefeller-like feeling. And we wonder what kind of weirdo the woman must have thought I was, with the gall to lecture her on good deeds and charity. That’s an ace in Diego’s sleeve that he’s used on several occasions.
A slightly different version of good deeds happened last week as I received an unexpected boon from a young man I’d never seen before.
Here’s what happened:
My car’s gas tank has a cap-less spout; there’s only a door flap and spout. Possibly through rough handling, I discovered that the assembly behind the gas door had suddenly become a two-piece outfit. As luck would have it, the warranty on the car had expired, and two ace mechanics at the Albuquerque dealership examined the damage and came up with an estimate of ‘four-ninety-two.” “Well, since it’s less than five dollars,” I began to say, but Mechanic No. 1 told me we’re talking about four big ones, not singles.
Well, how much harm is there in having a spout that I need to grip tightly while gassing up? I chose not to authorize the repair, which would also have tied up my car for two days.
Just out of curiosity, after arriving back in Las Vegas, I went to O’Reilly Auto Parts on North Seventh Street and delivered a plaintive tale. A young clerk, Chris Martinez, followed me out of the store, examined the filler spout, and with some fiddling, popped the spout back in place.
The young man saved me close to $500 in parts and labor. He accepted my thanks and acted as if the operation had been no trouble at all. I’ve discovered that the staffs at O’Reilly’s, as well as other such places in town, routinely go out of their way to install wipers, batteries and other car parts. I really appreciate Chris’s efforts. So, if you come across him at that auto parts place, please tell him you read all about him.
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A number of Facebook friends have commented on a video that shows some fine views of the Plaza Park area. My disclosure is that when we “share” things on Facebook, meaning that I have appropriated something someone else posted, the name of the source follows, to ensure people get the proper credit. I “shared” (i.e., appropriated) the Plaza post done by Gilbert Varela, but his name never showed up on my page, giving the impression I had created the video.
It’s worth watching several times. Gilbert made the video with a combination of a camera called Go-Pro and a drone device that hovers high up. My first look at the video made me wonder whether Gilbert had used the assistance of a hot-air balloon, a hang-glider — or perhaps a very tall photographer. Check it out, and by all means, heap lots of praise on Gilbert.
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What do Las Vegas-area folks think about the current invasion of alien children into the United States? There are more than 60,000 unaccompanied children likely to cross the U.S.-Mexico border this year. Most come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. An unscientific but nevertheless revealing poll emerged at Saturday’s People’s Faire, when Bob Pearson and members of Amnesty International set up a series of tubes alongside questions on immigration. The procedure was to give each participant three pennies, asking them to drop any number into any of the glass tubes to indicate their opinion.
The poll had four entries: Send Children Back Immediately, Allow Entry to Those Fleeing Violence, Allow Them to Join Relatives/Friends in the U.S., and Increase Security to Prevent Their Crossing.
Of the 262 people who took part in the poll, almost half, 47 percent, appear to favor permitting entry to allow children to flee from violence. And 41 percent favor allowing the children to join relatives and friends in the U.S.
Only 3 percent say the children should be shipped back immediately.
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Martin Sommerness, a member of the communications faculty at Northern Arizona University, once was my colleague as we co-taught a journalism workshop for several summers during the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Martin, a fellow comma-chaser, posted something clever, like this:
“I received a post from a woman with the message, ‘Your adorable.’
“I answered her, ‘No, you’re adorable.’ Now, I think she likes me.
“All I was trying to do was correct her grammar.”