Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Una as a hippie dog named Sunshine,
or maybe a caped crusader for good

I walk my dog, Una, on a regular basis and this means that just by chance, I sometimes get to be a force of good in my community.

This may be something simple, such as somebody stopping to ask for directions. I can't always help them, but if they ask for something that's familiar to me, I always do.

Then there are times when I spot something going on with a neighbor's property.

Once I smelled gas in front of a house on my street, so I called the gas company. They didn't act on it immediately, but perhaps they checked it out and decided it wasn't an emergency. A couple days later I saw a gas truck there.

I stopped a neighborhood child once in the process of picking the prize roses of a neighbor. I gave her such a guilt trip about it that I believe she even went up to the door and apologized.

But the reason I now carry my cell phone with me whenever I go for a walk is because of something that happened earlier this year. I was walking Una, as always, and I saw a man in a sort of motorized scooter sitting right off the curb. He was kind of thrown back in his seat at an odd angle and seemed to be trembling.

At first it didn't hit me there was something wrong, and I just said hi, but then I went back and asked him if there was something wrong. He was difficult to understand because, as he explained to me, he has Parkinson's. He said he'd just had a severe back spasm.

I asked if there was anything I could do, and he said just to get him up onto the curb. So I pushed him up there and then stayed awhile talking to him. He seemed to like Una and for her part, she was nice but fairly disinterested after sniffing him once.

He wasn't terribly old; I'd say somewhere in his 40s. I asked him if he would be able to get home by himself or if there was somebody I could call for him. Of course, that particular day, I didn't have my cell phone on me, so this was a fruitless suggestion anyway. But he said he was fine and could get home on his own if he just rested a bit.

So after I was absolutely certain he'd be okay, I bid him good-bye and continued my walk. I didn't see him there when I passed back that way on the way home, so I figured he was able to get home by himself.

Ever since then I've taken my cell phone with me; you never know what's going to happen.

Through the strangest possible circumstance, since I'm dictating this into my mini tape recorder while walking my dog, I just saw the guy I was writing about. He was zipping down the road on his motorized scooter, looking fine. I called out and waved to him. Funny thing: he's actually younger than I had thought when I saw him earlier. I'd now place his age in the late 30's.

This was the first time I'd seen him since it happened, so it's good to see he's doing OK.

I sometimes feel there are forces beyond me at work, guiding me into the path of people who need help when I can do a little good for them.

Amusingly enough, just now somebody asked me for directions to the borough hall, which I provided. And so the universe keeps finding ways for me to be a Good Samaritan.

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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