What's Your Name?

July 28, 2017
De Nada

Last week I got a lot of comments about my intro on charitable giving (I posted some of them at Travelingboy.com). So I hope you don't mind that I touch on a similar topic today.

Sammy (not his real name) went deep sea fishing over the weekend and told me he had some fish for me. I thought he was kidding. I mean, nobody gives me "fish!" But true to his word, he called me at the end of the day and said he was delivering his promise.

In my mind, I was thinking "what's the catch?" Is this a prank? But he handed me a vacuum packed chunk of that 125 pound tuna. The texture and color were perfect and when my wife and I put it in our mouths, it was amazingly fresh. The last time I had so much fresh fish was before I was married. Thank you "Sammy."

The next day, out of the blue, my wife's office mate gave her a box of fresh yellow kiwi. Kiwi never tasted that good.

What was going on? Why were people suddenly so generous? I pondered about it, and concluded that kindness is actually quite common. In my circle of friends alone, these good people are quite abundant.

I know of Wendy, who is going to Haiti on a medical mission trip next month to do chiropractic work; there's Kyle, another chiropractor who joins a rescue team in Big Bear on a regular basis; there's John who is going on his 10th trip to Nigeria to teach about entrepreneurship; there's Ray who is close to 90 and gives lectures on job creation; there's another Ray, a dry cleaner, who gathers old clothes for poor families around Christmas time; there's Romy who orchestrates sending doctors to the Philippines to repair cleft lips; I have countless church members who volunteer to care for kids, seniors, and the homeless; there's my Rotary group that helps build houses for orphans in Mexico. One of my sisters and her husband also goes on mission trips and builds classrooms and lectures on emergency preparedness. My brother works with NGOs to uplift poverty and his daughter started a non-profit to redistribute food. Of course, there are "pretenders" who give with "strings attached" but there are "genuine people" who give and expect nothing in return.

I'm sure you can share of your own friends who are just the nicest people in the world, right?

Let's keep paying it forward. Even if the generous person says "de nada" (Spanish for it was nothing), you know it really was something. Let's always show our appreciation.

Let me confide in you. I've stopped volunteering to do caricatures for some non-profits because they simply forgot to say "Thank You." True, I told them I didn't want to get paid; but honestly, that was the one payment that I did expect.

"Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."
– Melody Beattie

TGIF people!

What's Your Name?
Contributed by Skip of CA

A burglar breaks into a couple's bedroom. The startled husband and wife wake up and the burglar says: "Too bad! Now that you have seen my face, I have to kill you!"

Pointing a gun at the wife, the burglar asks: "before I shoot you, I need to know your name."

"Elizabeth!" sobbed the wife.

The burglar is shocked. "That is my mother's name! I can't shoot you! I can't shoot my own mother!"

Pointing the gun at the husband, he demands: "What's your name?"

Nervous, perspiring and deep in thought, the husband responds: "My ... my ... na ... name is J.. J ... Joe! ...
but my close friends call me 'Elizabeth!'"

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