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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, asked my son, Diego, to hold her place in line at the pumps.<\/p>\n
She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d driven up to the wrong side of the pump, and fearing she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, I saw the grateful woman and admonished her to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153help the next person who needs it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She nodded, thanked me and drove off.<\/p>\n
As Diego and I left Allsup\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, my son set the record straight: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dad, 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.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Well, he had me there. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d thought Diego had underwritten most of the purchase and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d added the extra change. My contribution enabled the woman to drive about 260 feet farther than if I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t put in my share.<\/p>\n
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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an ace in Diego\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sleeve that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s used on several occasions.<\/p>\n
A slightly different version of good deeds happened last week as I received an unexpected boon from a young man I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never seen before.<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what happened:<\/p>\n
My car\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gas tank has a cap-less spout; there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfour-ninety-two.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, since it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s less than five dollars,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I began to say, but Mechanic No. 1 told me we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about four big ones, not singles.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Just out of curiosity, after arriving back in Las Vegas, I went to O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly 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.<\/p>\n
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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve discovered that the staffs at O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s efforts. So, if you come across him at that auto parts place, please tell him you read all about him.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153share\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153shared\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (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.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or perhaps a very tall photographer. Check it out, and by all means, heap lots of praise on Gilbert.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Only 3 percent say the children should be shipped back immediately.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
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 \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc80s and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc90s.<\/p>\n
Martin, a fellow comma-chaser, posted something clever, like this:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I received a post from a woman with the message, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcYour adorable.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I answered her, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcNo, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re adorable.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Now, I think she likes me.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153All I was trying to do was correct her grammar.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, asked my son, Diego, to hold her place in line at the pumps. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d driven up to the wrong side of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1265,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions\/1265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}