Sometimes, you just gotta do the right thing.

[Jagger]

Originally Posted by TheyCallMeBruce

I met a friend of mine through a good deed. People often say my story is super cute, but a manly man such as myself refuse to acknowledge that.

That's a great story too.

What a great thread.

[SaskaBushFire]

You are border line hero-idiot. Can't decide which yet. Good story though.

[OilersBaby]

Here's something that a total stranger did for me and I will always be very thankful.

I'm hypoglycemic..that's kind of like being diabetic, but instead of your glucose levels getting dangerously high, they get dangerously low. Not enough sugar/glucose makes you feel really dizzy and f I don't eat for a while, I end up feeling like I have no energy and as though I'm going to faint. When I travel, I always pack high protein snacks and also some with sugar in case I need the instant energy.

A few years ago when I was in college I had to take the train with my luggage. My flight out of San Francisco (60 miles away) was at 8 am. I live in San Jose so I had to take the 4:45 Caltrain to make sure I got there.

When I was on the train, someone stole my bag with my snacks. I thought "oh well, I'll just buy more snacks at the airport". When I got to the airport, the magnetic swipe on my debit and credit cards wasn't working, they'd somehow been demagnetized. I had just figured that I'd stop by the ATM at the airport and hadnt stopped by at the bank since it was early. I wasn't going to get home to Fort McMurray for another 12 hours or so (flying from SF-Seattle-Calgary-Edmonton-Fort McMurray - it was a flight I booked using airmiles so thats the reason for all the connections).

I knew that soon, I wouldnt be feeling well because when you're hypoglycemic, you need to eat or your glucose level DROPS to dangerous levels. What was worse that my flight got delayed out of SF. When I got to the Calgary airport around 3 pm or so, I felt so sick, I thought I was going to faint. I knew that my blood sugar levels were dangerously low. I went through all of my pockets and everything for change, and only had $0.67 - not even enough at any of the fast food restaurants. I was in the airport Harveys, and I was so hungry, I asked a few "nice looking" people if they could spare some change because I had been awake since 430 and hadnt had much to eat since my snack bag was stolen. They all walked away . I know that normal people wouldnt feel so sick for skipping lunch, but my severe hypoglycemia makes me feel really sick, like I'm going to pass out there. Well, some nice lady (in a flames t shirt nonetheless) asked me what's wrong? I said, Im sorry, this is really dumb, but...and then I explained to her what had happened. She handed me a $5 and said go "get yourself some food honey". I bought myself a hamburger and a soda and went to give her the change, but she refused it. I asked for her business card, and when I got back to California, I sent her a box of chocolates from the local Ghirardelli store as well as a thank you email because she saved me from fainting. Random acts of kindness are so nice.

I know most people wouldve done the same, but the truth is, no one else asked if I was okay.

So when you help someone, remember that one day, you may need help too.

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

hahaha man, I have YET to see anything positive posted by you. Everything you talk about is negative. Come on now, you should be honest with us. You've never tried to help someone and it worked out?

lol...I'm a bitter young man. Of course I have. I have a disabled grandmother whom I take care of daily. I do minor stuff most of the time without thinking...like holding the doors open for people. Not much to say I guess.

[Azure]

Great stories, and a great thread. You da man Frank!

[looooob]

Originally Posted by simmer2

I have a similar story that just goes to show what a simple act of kindness can do.

I was in Krakow, Poland and my buddy and I decided to go to Auschwitz, the concentration camp from WWII. It was a fairly long day with lots information and lots of emotion. People from all over the world were there to learn about the atrocities.

Anyways, it's about 4:30pm and my buddy had left to go back to the hostel early. I'm walking back towards the entrance along the railroad tracks (where they brought the trainloads of prisoners in) and see this elderly lady up ahead of me who was struggling with a heavy purse. She was probably 4'11, and the weight of her purse made her look like a human version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

I caught up to her and asked her if I could carry her purse. She was more than willing to give it to me, and so we started chatting. She asked me about where I was from, why I would come to a horrible place like Auschwitz. I then asked her why she was there, and she said "I was a prisoner here 60 years ago."

I wish I could have seen the look on my face. This elderly lady, 76 years old, was in the camp when she was 16. We started chatting, and for the next 1.5 hours, she gave me a tour of the camp. She shared stories, talked about the conditions, showed me where the children stayed, how they bribed the guards, snuck more food and clothing in, everything. It was an unbelievable experience.

To this day, I can envision nearly every single second of that 1.5 hours. All because I offered to carry a purse.

I'm not sure I could imagine a more powerful experience. wow

[return to the red]

Originally Posted by looooob

I'm not sure I could imagine a more powerful experience. wow

My thoughts exactly, it's one thing to be somewhere like that but to get a first hand account would be something that you would never forget.

Came back from Hawaii in September and went to Pearl Harbour, that alone was such a memorable experience I couldn't imagine what a trip to a place like Auschwitz would be like

[gordo67]

I will give a homeless person any change I have in my pocket. I really don't care what they do with it because they eventually will need money to eat. If I don't have change I just say sorry and keep walking. The best was when I was driving by the drop in center going to a game. I stopped at the lights and this rough looking native guy knocks on the windowof my truck. I roll down the window and he proceeds by saying he isn't going to lie to me. He says he needed something like $1.45 to buy a bottle of beer (shows me his change) I laugh and gave him a few bucks, at least he was honest.

[Sparks]

Thanks everyone for sharing your stories. Awesome stuff.

...I come out with a big smile, greet the guy and hand him the sandwich. He takes it, looks at me with a disgusted look and says "does this have ham on it? I don't like ham"...

Funny story - my mom used to buy coupons (for nearby Subway, Tim Hortons, etc) so she could give them out to homeless people on the way to work. Some appreciated it, but she found it pretty hillarious how some of them started avoiding her because they wanted cash.

Thought that was funny, and a pretty good idea.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by Frank the Tank

I am the only person on this earth who does not have a cell phone.

No, theres two of us!

I'm sure something more to your liking will come up for you. I don't believe in much, but usually if you conduct yourself in a manner like you did I do believe something good eventually will come up.

I was in France like 10 years back and there was an American veteran there visiting for the 50th anniversary for the end of the war. Him and his wife were having a tough time figuring out what platform their train was going to be at, and the French folk weren't feeling like speaking English to Americans that day. I was travelling with a some friends and my french was good enough to get by and one of my travelling mates was really fluent in the language. So we found out where and when their train was coming and assited them getting there as the train station in Caen required you to go up and down a set of stairs to get to the platform (no elevator). In talking to them I felt a bit bad that people weren't quite as thankfull to an American Veteran who'd fought there there as they seemed to be to us Canadians who's parents hadn't even been born when that war was fought.

It was a good time to be in Europe though. Everyone in France, Holland, and Belgium was offering us discounts. Even the girls in the Redlight district claimed 25% discounts for Canadian boys. The Germans just spat at us when we went to Germany.

[SaskaBushFire]

If they were spitting on Canadians I would hate to see what they did to the Russians!!

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Frank the Tank

I am the only person on this earth who does not have a cell phone. I loathe them. I guess I could have called, but it didn't occur to me. Plus, I didn't have his phone number handy or anything. Ah well, its all pointless speculation because i couldn't have worked for such an ass-clown anyhow. The feeling on the drive home was worth every potentially lost penny!

Well, I don't have one either. It's too bad they don't give out ass clown awards, that moron would probably get #1 status for 07

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by return to the red

04 playoff run and I'm hauling ass up to Calgary from Lethbridge driving by myself. I come around the bend to turn onto the #3 and there is this guy completely decked out in Flames gear. I figure to myself, how can I NOT pick up this guy. I pull over and he jumps in. First words out of his mouth are "I knew you would pull over, as soon as I saw the Car flag and could make out the Jersey I knew I had a ride". Guy was a pretty cool guy and beat the hell out of driving by myself. Makes for a great playoff story as well.

Was this guy standing on the exit ramp turning off of University Dr to Hwy 3?
If he was, I drove by this guy before you... heading to the game.... with my jersey on... with numerous car flags. I feel like an asshat now

[jolinar of malkshor]

Originally Posted by fleury

...you must pack a large set of gonads my friend . Too risky for me.

Well....my wife says the same thing....she will never let me pick up a hitch hiker if shw is with me. I have never felt threatened yet when picking someone up....maybe that is because I am use to dealing with strange people and being in high stress situations....so maybe that is why.

Just a few hitch hiker stories.

One time I was driving home from work in Southern Alberta and I see these two hitch hikers ("HH"). I pull over and next thing I know they run into the ditch and bring back two large garbage bags. I ask what is inside and they say "we need to go to the bottle depot". Ok...I take them to Lethrbidge and drop them off at the closest bus stop.

Another time same area I pull over for this women HH. She jumps in and says she really needs to get to Lethbridge to find her husband because he hasn't been home for over a week and she has been in her home with no food. (She lives in the country). She says her husband was suppose to go to Lethbridge and get groceries but he has not been back for a week. I asked her where he might be and he she tells me he is probably at the bar in Lethbridge....I start driving and she begins to cry....really hard. I ask what is wrong and she says that her house is haunted and she was all alone in her house with a ghost. Well....she cried all the way to Lethbridge (45 mins away). I dropped her off downtown Lethbridge and wished her good luck.

As for people asking for money....I usually never give money out. I will ask what they need the money for and most of the time they say it is for food. If there is a fast food spot near by I will usually offer to go buy them something. Sometimes they do sometimes they don't. What I have found quite a few times over the last 6 months....people coming up to me in the parking lot of a mall and explain to me that they have just arrived in Calgary from down east....have been looking for a place to stay and work but have ran out of money. I always offer to take them somewhere to buy them some food....everytime except this one guy they refuse. This one guys did take me up on the offer and I took him to A&W. I said order what ever you want. He did and he seemed sooo happy.

[J pold]

Wow some of these stories are pretty amazing I must say and Kudos to all

On time I was at superstore or wal mart are something along those lines I am only there to grab a small item I am walking out when I see a young child balling his eyes out he was clearly lost, at first I just watched the kid to see if an adult would approach him because I was only 18 at the time but when a bunch of people just ignored the kid so I approached

He was about 4 years old and has lost his mother; I calmed him down and asked him how long he had been without her. He said it was pretty long so I walked him over to MacDonald’s and bought him an ice cream cone he was pretty happy now, but I grew worried as I had not herd anything over the intercom about a missing child, we went to customer service and asked if anyone was missing there child but they didnt know so I just walked around the store with the guy for about 25 minutes

When to my relief a women comes running up and starts screaming at her kid that he should never wander off again, she was clearly upset and didn’t really appreciate me helping the young boy, telling the boy he should never talk to strangers and that next time I should just mind my own business I could understand her frustration and worry so it wasn’t a big deal I knew I had helped the kid and I hope he does to

And my whenever I write to my foster child in Pakistan I feel really good, I just sent him and his family enough money to have fresh water for at least a month

And there was the one time I have CaptainCanada80 a ride home from the dome

[FlamesKickAss]

good on ya frank, and everyone else who has a similar story, you make this world a better place to live in

[Devils'Advocate]

I can think of one.

I was getting ready for a blind date that a buddy of mine had set up for me. As I was headed out the door, my landlord knocked. He said that the woman in the apartment above me was having computer problems. I didn't know the woman very well at all... I mean I had seen her in the laundry room before but we had never spoken. I told the landlord that I'd be happy to look at the computer the following evening but I was off on a date. He said that it was an emergency and she really needed someone ASAP. So I looked at my watch and figured I had 5 minutes to spare. I went up and the woman was crying uncontrollably.

What I found out was that she had just moved here from Russia. She had been dumped by her husband who had spent everything they ever had on booze. She was three months behind on the rent and was about to get an eviction notice. She had managed to land a huge russian-english translating contract, but the document needed to be in at midnight because they needed it reproduced and binded before a 9am conference. She had the document on her hard-drive and the machine wouldn't boot. I quickly summized that it was more than a 5 minute job.

I think it was more out of a "how big of a jerk would I feel like if I left this woman in this predicament?" than a "I'll be a nice guy" sentiment. I wasn't able to get the girl at home, but I called the restaurant, gave them the same description I was given and asked that they tell her that I wasn't going to make it.

I tell ya, there is nothing worse than trying to fix a computer with a 60 year old woman sitting on her bed sniffling and dabbing her eyes. I knew that her emotion had far more to do with her prediciment than the computer breakdown. That was just the proverbial straw. So while I'm working away at the computer, I'm trying to calm the woman down so I'm doing simultaneous tech-support psychiatry and doing a far better job on the former than the latter. An hour and a half later, after re-installing the whole operating system and running some diagnostic checks we were able to get her document back up.

I never did meet the girl. I did phone her to apologize but she'd have none of it. I just chalk it up to "wasn't meant to be". And since I've never seen her, meh, I just picture her as Roseanne Barr.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

I can think of one.

I never did meet the girl. I did phone her to apologize but she'd have none of it. I just chalk it up to "wasn't meant to be". And since I've never seen her, meh, I just picture her as Roseanne Barr.

Well, she was probably a serial rapist and you dodge a bullet there by not ending up her next victim.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

I never did meet the girl. I did phone her to apologize but she'd have none of it. I just chalk it up to "wasn't meant to be". And since I've never seen her, meh, I just picture her as Roseanne Barr.

Hmmm.... considering your username and the other thread going on, I was picturing her as this.....




Just kidding of course...

[J pold]

^^
Wow that is one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen