I recently started receiving daily posts from Sean of the South, a storyteller who wrote Stars of Alabama, the book I’ve been listening to on Audible; and they’ve been serving as a small source of light between heavy. I experience Sean as skilled at pulling a story together, a little hokey at times with I suspect some embellishment added to set the tone and wrap up loose ends, but in the overall sincere enough make me believe most of what he writes is real. But then I grew up in home that had a stack of Reader’s Digests and Guideposts stashed in the bathroom as reading material, so your mileage may vary. Yesterday's post contained four stories of good stuff, differences made in hard times, with the following as the first:
FORT MITCHELL, Ky.—The Oriental Wok restaurant is your quintessential family owned Chinese restaurant. They’ve been around for 42 years, and business has been good. But business is about to go down the toilet due to the shutdowns on Monday.
Restaurant after restaurant is closing. One out of every five people in the U.S. have either lost their jobs, or had their hours taken away due to the coronavirus pandemic.
If you’ve ever worked in food service, you know how this closure hurts. A server lives on tips. Five bucks here, eight bucks there. Servers are constantly carrying platters, collecting dirty dishes, forcing smiles, yes-sirring, no-ma’aming, and apologizing because the kitchen made the General Tso’s chicken spicy enough to disable a musk ox.
After a typical shift, many servers go home, balance their checkbooks, and discover they will be eating Kraft Mac and Cheese for the next six months because of mounting bills, and their oldest kid needs dental braces.
Just before the Oriental Wok closed its doors, a few final customers walked in. They were regulars. They ate, they paid, they left.
There was a note written on their receipt, which read: “Your family has always taken such good care of us through the years, we know it’s going to be a tough few months.”
They left a $1,000 tip...
He ends the post with this:
HOUSTON—Guy walks into a Mexican restaurant. Guy orders a meal. Guy consumes dangerous amounts of cheese dip. Then, this guy pays his bill and leaves. He has included a note on his receipt. This is getting eerily familiar.
The note reads: “Hold tip to pay your guys for the next few weeks.”
The tip is for $9,400.
The server nearly has to be revived with cold water.
This happened yesterday at Irma’s Southwest restaurant, which was closing down just like every other place in town. The $9,400 was divided evenly among the staff. Each employee took home $300. It was an emotional day.
“I mean, I don’t have words for it,” said general manager, Janet Montez. “I really don’t.”
Neither do I. And that’s actually why I wrote this. This morning, I sat down to write something else, but I couldn’t. Because when I opened my inbox, it was flooded with messages from too many people. People who had a story about someone who did something nice, somewhere in the world.
These stories of kindness are coming from almost every U.S. state, and I have been reading them for hours. Someone left a big tip in California, Kansas, Louisiana. A young man paints his elderly neighbor’s house because he’s been laid off. A local choir sings “Happy Birthday” for an elderly woman over the phone.
It moved me. You sit down and read one of these sweet stories; it blesses you. You read five in a row, and you decide you want to be a better person. You read a hundred, and you start to cry like a teenage girl at an Elvis concert. Because you never believed that there could be THIS much good happening during such a rough time.
But there is good stuff happening. It’s everywhere. It’s in the air, and it’s highly contagious. And if you don’t believe me, I’ll bet $1,000 bucks you’re wrong.
His recent post on Thelma Lou, his bloodhound, was another I enjoyed.
10 comments:
I spent 5 nights in hotels on my way back from San Diego. I always tip generously, but doubled it on the way home. Tripled tips for housekeepers. Want to please the Good Lord. Always tip housekeepers.
Generosity of Spirit came through in Aridog as well, ND. It was one of the things I appreciated about him along with his directness, awareness of his strengths and shortcomings, and willingness to reach out, with his scarred and toughened heart showing through again and again in ways that mattered and were evident to those he connected with, including his dogs. That's part of lasting legacy--as love invested continues to produce returns past the point of departure. And we don't know how far it goes or where it lands to grow and make a difference.
Ever since my dad died in 1994, I've been giving away amaryllis bulbs at Christmas in memory of him. Some of the recipients are the same each year and some are different, as I keep them in my car and ask people whose lives happen to cross mine if they'd like one. This year one of the car delivery guys at Culver's gladly accepted one, as did a woman who stopped by the studio with her 18 year old grandson and stayed to talk. Turned out her mom was being treated for cancer, so she took a bulb along to give to her; and the grandson, who was intrigued (having not heard of such a bulb before)and took one back with him to his home in Florida. Last week, after returning from a visit to Florida, she stopped by to give me a picture she'd painted at the grandson's request of one of the flowers. She told me the numbers coming back on her mom weren't good, but the bulbs had provided an unexpected connection point between the grandson and his great-grandma, with him calling her almost daily to compare growth and blooms and "talk about something other than how she was doing with her cancer".
I don't know what to do with a story like that, other than to hold it with gratitude and share it as evidence of mystery, love, beauty and a connection that goes beyond what I could have planned or imagined.
Mama, Sometimes I wonder if some people don't get the good feeling from giving. I often am most generous when I feel bad. So, the generosity is not as much altruistic as it is selfish. I feel better giving, not just money or temporal things but giving compliments. Got this from my mom.
I ventured out today expecting the panic hoarders to finally be gone. Stopped at a grocery store that usually had corned beef on sale after St. Pat's Day. Holy Moley. They had plenty of the stuff but at $5.61 a lb (reg price $7.50). Last time I got it it was $1.49 on sale.
Dropped in at Walmart too. No crowds but everyone looked like they were wandering around in a daze. Lucky for me they had a whole pallet of what I came for, caffeine free diet Coke. On sale to boot! Looks like I'll be good for the next Zombie Apocalypse.
@ndspinelli: We've been having shitty weather in SoCal and there's no end in sight, so you won't be missing any days walking on the beach. The weather is bad for spreading virus.
Tonight, the Governor is telling, advising, commanding? everyone to stay home. That should be interesting tomorrow. Good on you for being generous.
The scariest thing I heard today was from a truck driver who told me that the ports in LA have all but shut down -- not due to sick dockworkers but rather because ships aren't landing. We can poo-poo all we want about needing to lessen the trade imbalance, but such a drastic halting will sooner rather than later lead to shortages of things made in China. This, I believe, is part of the on-going trade war with China. I post more on this developing story as I learn more.
chick, It rained the last 4-5 days of our stay and I have been following the weather[I'm a weather geek] since I left. I love Mission Beach and the entire area.
That is interesting about the LA ports. I love talking to truckers. One gave me a great route. My most direct route is through the Rockies on 70. Too iffy in the winter. So, I took 40 thru NM then a state Hwy 54 which is a great hypotenuse thru the eastern NM and the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles ending in Wichita. I love this country and driving different roads. Take care.
chick, I see your guv just locked everyone into their house.
I'm going to work tomorrow.
I have been contemplating starting a business from home making fake plastic beverages.
In my experience, clean giving, giving without holding expectations of much in return, requires practice and someone to show the way. Though I didn't experience a lot of open giving when I was growing up, the bulbs my dad gave away had no strings attached other than the hope they might be enjoyed by the recipient, and that may have been what prompted me to do the same.
I'd wondered this year if I was doing it more for myself or the sake of continued tradition that was no longer needed, and almost decided not to buy them, but decided to enter into it differently, less like Lady Bountiful and more like an offer, asking those I met if they'd like to have one to take home or give to someone else. And that worked so well I ran out of bulbs before Christmas giving the last one to a waitress (who'd been one of the first to receive one this year) after she came up to me when I was in again to ask where I'd bought them, because she'd been looking for one to give to her dad. Telling her I had one left in the truck that was waiting for someone who might enjoy it and asking if she'd like to give it to her dad, privately completed the circle started with my own father years before.
I'm glad you got what you did from your mo, ND and are able to use it for good. It's a gift that keeps on giving, in unexpected and intangible ways.
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