Have you ever noticed that society seems scared to death of strangers?  It’s as though we think that they’re going to kill us . . . or they think that we’re going to kill them! 

I think that we’ve been conditioned to think this way by Hollywood movies and school.  I remember all to well my sister coming home from school (first grade, I think) and talking about having learned about “Stranger Danger”.  I thought it sounded real funny and made kidded her about it until I was reminded about how scared I once was of the “boogey man”.  Stranger Danger didn’t seem so silly after being reminded of the “BM”.  However, that realization didn’t stop me from convincing Sis that everyone was Stranger Danger and they all crouched below her bedroom window at night.

Wasn’t I a great big brother?

True story:  Back in the mid-seventies, Mom, Dad, Sis, and I packed up the family camper and headed for a short trip to Northern Arizona.  We camped in Prescott and then on up to the Grand Canyon.  The first part of the trip was made up of great Kodak moments.

That is, until we had left the Grand Canyon, driving on a desolate two lane highway on one of the Indian reservations.  The sun had just gone down when one of the tires on the truck blew out.  We had just passed a gas station five miles earlier and the sun had set about an hour earlier. 

Great.

So, Dad and I left Mom and Sis locked up in the cab of the camper and started rolling the tire the five miles back to the gas station, hoping that it was still open.

During our father/son tire roll, a pick-up truck blew past us, slowed down, turned around, and drove up to us.  It was a Native American man with his wife and baby.  He asked us if we wanted a lift but we politely declined.  He said, “Look, the gas station is going to be closed before you make it there.  I’ll take you there to get your tire fixed.” 

That made sense to us so we hopped in the back of his pick up.

Now, I’d be lying if I said that every cowboy and Indian war scene from every movie I had ever seen didn’t pass through my 15 year old brain because they did!  I was worried sick – mainly because I was pretty vain about my hair and I was rather attached to it in more ways than one.

I was proved SO wrong!  This kind gentleman and his family took us to the gas station and told the man what we needed. We expected him to go on his merry way but, nope!  He waited for the tire to be fixed, loaded us back up into his truck and took us back to the camper.  Not only that, he kept his truck high beams on us so that we could see while we changed the tire.

When all was said and done, he politely declined my dad’s offer of cash for his tremendous and generous help!

Yes, this story reveals prejudices and stereotypes that I held.  No, I didn’t “hate” Indians but I sure thought they were scary.  Visions of my dad and I being taken out to the middle of the desert and being tortured did, sadly and (comically) repeatedly flash through that pea brain of mine.  But that man, with his tremendous act of kindness, wiped out years of Hollywood conditioning.

Over the years, I’ve reflected on that experience and had to draw from those lessons learned when, at times, I thought that “Stranger Danger” was going to do me harm.  Yes, the nightly news seems to be filled with random acts of senseless violence.  However, when you stop and think about it, random acts of kindness like that Indian gentleman showed my family on that hot summer night many years ago just aren’t interesting enough for the evening news, are they?

While we do live in dangerous times, the majority of mankind is exactly that: kind men (and women). 

Your homework assignment for the next week is to commit some random acts of kindness of your own.  How?  By opening doors for people, anonymously pay for the meal of someone eating alone at the restaurant you’re dining in, or, even helping someone stranded on the road.

Who knows?  You just might destroy a stereotype that person may have of people that look just like you!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to change the channel on my T.V.  It’s showing an old Western that, for some reason, is looking pretty silly to me now.