Who said chivalry was dead in today’s society?

EVERY now and then one witnesses or hears about an incident which reminds us that there is still good in the world despite what we would otherwise be led to believe.

Such an incident occurred in our very own fair Garden City just last Sunday at the footy.

No, the selfless act wasn’t Teddy Tedesco’s Roosters “playing dead” so that my beloved Dragons might have a desperately needed win and stay in touch with the top eight, unfortunately, but nonetheless it was an act of chivalry that shouldn’t go unnoticed or unheralded.

A young friend of mine, a professional woman within our Toowoomba community, had attended the Dragons v Roosters match at Clive Berghofer Stadium last Sunday with friends who had settled onto a nice piece of turf on the hill for the afternoon.

As happens when spending long hours in the sun, rehydrating oneself was a necessity but, of course, that too takes a toll and our young lass found she had to avail herself of the portaloo.

Somehow, in circumstances that have not been made entirely clear to this reporter, our lass dropped her mobile phone down the portaloo.

Now, this is where different generations deal with such dilemmas in different ways.

For instance, had that been me who suffered the loss of my phone down into the bowels of a portable facility, I wouldn’t dare say a word – particularly to my harshly judging mates – I’d just be off to the Telstra Shop come Monday.

But not today’s generation, and the young lass, mortified as she was at what had befallen her, simply approached a security guard advising him of her loss.

Now, again, if the security guard was from my generation, he would have laughed and grabbed his twoway radio to inform his fellow security officers so they too could enjoy a giggle at the girl’s expense.

However, not today’s generation of security guard.

Far from saying “Oh, come on lady, surely you’re taking the … er, the mickey” as my generation would have, this chap went straight to the young lass’s rescue.

Fortunately, he had short sleeves but I feel certain had he had long sleeves on at the time he would have rolled them up.

Into the fray he went, extracting the tank enough to plunge his hand down into the depths to retrieve the hitherto lost phone.

Talk about going above and beyond – and below – the call.

Without fanfare, he handed the phone back to the young lass, albeit dripping somewhat but, believe it or not, still in working order.

When she told me of the events, I couldn’t help but tell the young lass that indeed, chivalry was alive and well and living in Toowoomba.

In her embarrassment, she did try and downplay the gallant security guard’s efforts with: “It was early in the day and there were only Number Ones in the tank”.

Well, at the time our hero wasn’t to know that when he plunged into the depths to retrieve her phone with the intent of waste not, want not.

When I conveyed this story to my publican mate, another of my generation, he laughed and recalled to me a similar incident from his teenage years when he worked in his father’s pub which had a similar, but far less romantic outcome.

(Warning! You may want to read the following after breakfast.)

Their pub’s cleaner had come to them this particular morning before opening time with a set of false teeth he’d found in the men’s urinal.

False teeth were far more common in those days.

Our man grabbed a brown paper bag, usually used for takeaway “tallies” in those days, into which the cleaner dropped the teeth which were put behind the bar.

Sure enough, an older man appeared in the bar later that day asking if a set of false teeth had been handed in.

“I said ‘yes’,” our publican explained, and handed over the brown paper bag.

“The bloke just took the false teeth out of the bag and put them straight into his mouth,” he said.

As I said, different generations.

Talk about going above and beyond – and below – the call.