Remembering the Golden Rule

My youngest son, a friend of his and I drove down to Atlanta on Saturday to see the Braves take on the Mets in their last home stand of the season. We’ve been to a bunch of games at both Turner Field and the old Fulton County Stadium over the years, but it’s always tricky navigating downtown Atlanta.

We were in bumper-to-bumper traffic and trying to get into the left-hand lane. I motioned to the driver of a van beside/behind us and he waved us over. After sitting there, not making any progress getting through the intersection, this guy in the van pulls out from behind us and over to the passenger side and motions for us to roll the window down. He says if we’ll follow him through the intersection instead of trying to turn left, he’ll get us to the stadium. After 10 minutes of twisting and turning, sure enough he had us at a parking lot about a block from the stadium. We pulled alongside him and thanked him profusely, and he smiled and waved, and said, “No problem, enjoy the game.”

How about that? This guy had nothing to gain but the gratitude of some out-of-towners visiting his city. I was so happy that my son and his friend, who are both 14, were there to witness this man’s unsolicited graciousness. What a great example to follow.

I sometimes wonder how we lose sight of the value of the Golden Rule. It really is so much easier to be nice. You don’t have to think of clever things to say, or keep a running tally of who’s worthy and who’s not. And it makes your days more pleasant all the way around.

Have you ever looked back on a really good day? Wouldn’t it be great if all days could be like that? We had a great day on Saturday – the Braves won on a an RBI single by Chipper Jones in the bottom of the eighth – and it all started with that guy who went out of his way just to be nice.