A proper exaltation for a few good Samaritans

It’s been a week now, long enough to get over it, yet there remains here an urge to tell the world about something that happened late last Saturday afternoon during Memorial Day weekend.

No worker still on the job at a time like that is looking for last-minute things to do; if anything, most would have one eye on the clock and another on the door, anxious to be sprung free.

But that’s not the way it was when a motorist, who still can’t believe how mindless he was, reached for a CD lying on the floor in front of his passenger seat. In just that millisecond of inattentiveness his car swerved to the right, jumped a granite curb and ruptured its tire.

It was one of those times when there’s no one but yourself to be furious at, and he was indeed furious. Inexcusable. Indefensible. Unpardonable.

As he sat there along Route 1 in North Attleboro, disgusted with himself, he noticed he’d had the good fortune to have come to a stop in front of an auto dealership. So he entered the service area hoping to find someone who might know where to find a replacement tire when the world is on a holiday break.

Fortunately the service advisers there wear name tags.

That’s how he can still remember it was Wayne who told him to relax and made a few phone calls, eventually locating a tire and arranging to have it delivered within the hour.

Still bristling with frustration he clearly caught the attention of Wayne’s colleagues who, as if on cue, began walking over to him.

There was Brad who brought him a bottle of water, and Jason who brought him an orange, and Courtney who brought him a chocolate chip cookie.

There was Lee, with a smile that could illuminate Foxboro Stadium, confiding he was undergoing rounds of chemotherapy, a reminder that problems like a shattered tire had to be placed in perspective. And there was Jeff who, upon learning their distressed guest had been on an errand, pulled up in a courtesy van and helped him complete that task.

Mind you, he was not a Toyota customer; in fact the decal on his trunk revealed he had purchased his car from Cerrone Chevrolet a mile or so down the street.

When he tried to convey his gratitude, Wayne assured him, “It’s no big deal. ‘Do unto others’; isn’t that what they say?”

Yes, that’s what they say. It’s just not what they often do in corporate America these days.

As he drove away on his new tire, he thought of a verse in Scripture that essentially says, “If you don’t exalt yourself, I will exalt you.”

So, to all of you in the service crew at Boch Toyota in North Attleboro, many thanks!

Consider yourselves exalted.