The Kindness of Strangers
 

This was in our Akron paper today and I thought you might like to read














I was driving south on state Route 8 recently, when suddenly I was forced to slam on my brakes in order to avoid hitting the car in front of me, which had come to a virtually complete stop for no apparent reason.
As I craned my neck a bit farther, I noticed the cause of the abrupt change in traffic flow: Two small dogs were darting back and forth across the three lanes of traffic.
The dogs seemed unperturbed by the bevy of drivers honking their horns. As a rear-end accident seemed inevitable, I pulled off to the side of the road and fished around in my purse for my cell phone to call 911. When I looked up from my purse, the sight I saw caused a depressing, tense situation to become, in my mind, a beautiful reminder of why Northeast Ohio is such a wonderful place to live.
At least five cars had pulled to the side of the road, including a city cab. The drivers were sitting with their doors open, whistling for the dogs and inviting them into their cars. A few people stepped out of their cars and tried to safely cross the traffic to capture the dogs, who were still frolicking obliviously on the highway.
These people represented different races, genders, ages and, likely, socioeconomic classes. But they transcended all these differences to work toward the same goal: removing the dogs from the highway before the animals were killed or an accident occurred.
The sight moved me to tears.
Finally, a young man in a truck full of construction equipment captured one of the dogs and put it safely in the back of the truck. A middle-aged couple in an SUV caught the other one.
I exited the highway and pulled into the parking lot at the University of Akron, where I work. I dug a quarter out of my purse — not for my own meter, but to put into the expired parking meter of the car parked next to me.
Shamefully, I would normally never pay attention to such a thing, but I had just been so powerfully reminded that the reason the human species has survived this long is because we have learned how to take care of one another and the life around us.
We may suffer inconveniences, such as taking a hyperactive dog to an animal shelter when we might already be late for an appointment, but it is our willingness to be inconvenienced that allows us to survive. We live because we take care of each other.
If we can use this principle to guide our split-second decisions on a highway on an otherwise uneventful day in October, why not also use it to guide our relationships in our families, our friendships, our convictions, our law-making, our business practices and our foreign policy? What I saw that day reminded me how amazing the people of Akron truly are for remembering to care about one another, and I feel honored to live and work in this area.

That's great!!!

*tears* What a wonderful, true, and moving article!!! Thanks, I really needed that!!:)

That was great!

That's pretty neat! Great thread :thumbup:!

That is a truly heartfelt and touching story and so true. Helping and being kind to others is not a hard thing to do.:thumbup:

Good post :thumbup:

Wow!!! I am in tears...Great Article!!!

Thanks:thumbup:

Great post. Makes you feel there's still hope.

Thank you for sharing that. What a wonderful message!

that's such a sweet story:)

What a great story! I love to hear about people coming together to do something good, especially when it involved dogs or children. Thanks so much for sharing!

Wonderful to know their are still caring people out there, we hear to much of the bad. Thanks for sharing the good. Great Article!!

That was a great story

I like reading stories like that! :) Thanks for sharing.

Thankyou for sharing:thumbup:

That was a fantastic article! Kindess does goes a long way!:doghop: :doghop: :hearts-en:thumbup:

What a wonderful story.

Oh that's a beautiful story! Thanks for sharing.

What a wonderful reminder ... there really are great people out there who would give a few minutes, in our busy world, to do a good deed!!!! Better still ... good people like you who are willing to "pay it forward"!! :)

That is a great story. Same thing happened heree this summer. I was going to "town". I live in a rural plce and on the "big' highway, I saw a tiny fawn chi in the middle of the road. Going back and forth scared to death. About the time I pulled over, thinking the dog might pick up the scent of my dogs from me, two more cars pulled over. One of the men started going house to house on the little subdivision that sat next to the highway while the others of us were directing traffice and trying to shield the little dog. Finally, it got off the road and headed back toward the sub. going I guess, home. We couldn't catch it and if I had and known who it belonged to, I would not have been kind that day. The little dog had no collar, tags or anything to identify it. Owners probably didn't even know it was gone.

I find myself saying "What is this world coming to" every once in awhile. But we all must remember all the wonderful people in this world who help each other. I'm proud to live in Akron and could write a book about what they do for us seniors but every city is pretty much the same when they stop the rush about them and open their eyes.

It's so great to know that there are still people who will take time out of their busy lives to help save the lives of someone's furbabies. How touching - thanks for sharing.