The first such incident goes back as far as our recent trip to New Orleans. On our last day in the city Sarah lost her drivers license, credit card, hotel key, and military ID which she had
stored separately in as small sleeve. The fun part was getting Sarah onto an airplane with no photo identification. The rest, canceling credit cards and contacting govt agencies to receive replacement identification, wasn't a whole lot of fun. About a month after our trip to NOLA, Sarah received a FedEx package from the Bourbon Orleans Hotel, whose contents included the protective sleeve and all of her lost credentials. While in NOLA, we did not stay at the Bourbon Orleans hotel, nor did we correspond with them previously in any way. It is my belief that a good samaritan found Sarah's ID's, turned them into the hotel where they were staying, then a good samaritan employee used the hotel's FedEx account to mail us home the items. As far as I can tell, the only person in this entire chain of events who benefitted financially is FedEx. And yet, even though none of the individuals profited from the event, they went to fairly great lengths to return to us our lost items. Thank you everyone who helped return our lost ID's, as even though we do not profit from these events (everything had already been replaced), we do get
enormous peace of mind knowing not only that our identification isn't being used for malicious purposes, but also that there really are good people out there in this world.
The second incident was me, after being quite moved by the return of Sarah's ID's, repaying my Karmic debt to the universe. One rainy Saturday morning, I went on a training run at Point Defiance park along the muddy trails with one of my neighbors, Dave. After a gloriously muddy run, we were driving home and saw an elderly gentleman on the side of the road fruitlessly attempting to change a flat tire. Normally I don't stop to help people on the side of the road - because, who knows, maybe it's the next Dahmer trying to ensnare you in their trap - but today was different. Not only did I have my Karmic debt, but I had Dave, he would protect me if something went down. Not to mention we were already wet and muddy from the run, so getting a little more rain on our back was no big deal. I'm sure the gentleman may have been a bit scared of us at first, two mud-soaked hooligans coming to see if the needed "help." In the end, our good deed for the day was done and the man continued on his way to buy a new tire and we returned home feeling like good citizens.
Finally, on a grander scale, hundreds, if not thousands of people band together every day to engage in an activity where no one profits, even though everyone must put in some effort for the group at large to come out better. I'm speaking of Geocaching. If you are unfamiliar with the sport, to summarize, recreational GPS users "hide" small containers all around where we live, work, and play, mark the location using their GPS, and then upload that information to a centralized web database and essentially challenge other GPS users to find these "stashes." It's actually an enormous amount of fun and great for the entire family. It requires planning, use of multiple resources, and problem solving - not to mention essentially going on a treasure hunt almost anywhere in the world. Check our the web page for more information. www.geocaching.com
Two years ago for X-mas, I gave my father a "trackable" travel bug. See Michelin Man's photo above. The tag has a code on the bottom which can be input by geocachers to log on the database their discovery of the tag. The tag is designed to me mobile, travel to different geocaches, and have a goal. My father decided that the goal of Michelin Man was to travel from FL (where my parents live) to Point Defiance Park - near where I live. Over the past 2 years, with the help of almost 20 people, by route of just 4 states, and 12 different geocaches, Michelin Man traveled 3042.4 miles and was returned safely into my custody. My faith in the good of society is reaffirmed every time we go out geocaching, for not only the 20 people directly involved with MM's travels, but the thousands and thousands of fans of the activity which make is so popular and successful have all contributed their selfless time and effort to maintain a network which is free to everyone.
If not already a geocacher yourself, take a few minutes to locate the nearest cache to your house, and then see if you can go out and find it. It's how I started and I've been a recreational cacher ever since. Sarah and I will cache on vacation, or business trips, or make a lazy afternoon of bar crawling with geocaches between each bar we visit. We like to call it geocrawling. No matter how you do it, I think you'll find it as much fun as we do.
Visit the log of Michelin Man's travel's and look at a map of where he's been...
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