.:cool stories to make you feel fuzzy:.
a couple of mornings ago, i went into work and went downstairs to get my jolt of coffee. and just like every morning, there lay the daily austin american statesman. while waiting for my brew, i decided that i’d take a flip through the paper. as usual, this is a pretty depressing proposition…
the first story i glanced was something about the whole ‘armenian genocide’ debate and how the US was going to name it that here shortly. great idea…except that turkey is one of our key allies in this little iraq war thing. i’m not sure how pissing the turks off over something that happened 90+ years ago would be very conducive to what is happening now. but hey…no big deal.
then there was the SCHIP bill and how the veto bush doled out would stand for the time being due to the house majority not voting for an override. neat…9 million kids uninsured. thanks.
and then you have the myriad other stuff (some useless, some very depressing) making headlines…like britney spears and her child custody lawsuit, or the wild fires in san diego destroying thousands of peoples lives, or dumbledore being outed as a gay man, or ellen degenres crying over a dog that the SCPA wouldn’t let her give to her hairstylist because the hairstylist wouldn’t follow the rules and fill out some paperwork. the list could go on and on and on and on. but then, like finding a beautiful little diamond, i find this article.
the story summary is about these two kids in highschool, bowman townsend and tommie leon, who are good friends. bowman happens to have a pretty terrible crippling disease that makes it very difficult for him to walk around and move in general. something happened to where his summer therapy accomodation didn’t come through, and so his friend tommie volunteered to help him out and work with him. after a summer of helping him out, bowman can now walk pretty regularly with crutches, which is apparently something that he hasn’t been able to do.
unbelieveable. it might not seem like that big of a deal, but when you put it in perspective of the general situation, it’s pretty inspiring. we’re talking a 17 year old kid giving up his summer days to help a friend walk. no small task in and of itself, but it’s also a pretty massive act of selflessness for a kid of that age. this is a kid who could be out swimming, traveling, driving, working a summer job, picking up girls, hanging out, playing video games, playing sports…doing any number of other things a normal 17 year old might do…and yet he chooses to help someone else.
it’s really inspiring to hear that people still do things like this in a world that doesn’t seem to have a lot of very positive things going on. i know that tommie probably thinks that it’s a really simple thing he does, that it’s more ‘common sense’ than ‘going out of his way’. and i guess that’s the beauty of having a young mind; you aren’t jaded by what the rest of the world has to offer quite yet. your world consists of a pretty small bubble that includes you and your immediate surroundings. sometimes that can be frustrating for a parent or an adult, but sometimes…like in this case…it can be a really great thing.
i’m sure tommie has no idea of the massive impact this simple act will have on his friend bowman’s life…and maybe, all in all, that’s not a bad thing. sometimes doing positive things for the sake of doing them, with no realization nor care for what the outcome is or is not, is the best way to make things happen.
