Small Acts of Kindness Are Remembered

My sister asked about the helicopter on the bookcase in my office.  There is kind of an interesting story behind it. 

The gentleman that gave it to me was someone I worked with back in 1997 when I started with Boeing as a writer.  He took a particular 'shine' to me for some unknown reason.  He was in his 60's at the time and was heading towards retirement.  His name was Gene and he had a strong case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  He would come into work at precisely 7:00 every morning.  Not a minute sooner or later.  He would proceed to sit down at his desk and work diligently until exactly 9:00 and then he would take a ten minute break and come into my office (it was next to his) and chat with me for exactly 10 minutes.  He would tell me all kinds of adventures that he had had in his lifetime.  Then after ten minutes he would go back to work until 10:50 when he would go to the fridge and get his sandwich and soda.  He would put his sandwich on his monitor (we used to have big CRT monitors) to warm it up.  He would continue to work until exactly 11:00.  Then he would proceed to eat his sandwich, drink his soda and then go and take a walk.  While he was out walking, I would proceed to rearrange everything on his desk and he would come back and take a nap from 11:30 until 12:00.  At exactly 12:00 he would wake up (with no alarm...I would guess he was just resting his eyes and not really sleeping) and put all of his desk articles exactly where they belonged before I rearranged them and go back to work until 2:00 when he would come back into my office and chat with me for 15 minutes.  Then at precisely 2:15, he would go back to work and work until 4:00 when he would leave for the day. 

We worked together like this for about a year and then he decided to move back to California where he was originally from and eventually retire there.  Before  he left, he asked me if he could have this little silly toy that I kept on my desk (see...I've always had toys of some kind on my desk for people to play with).  It was a little girl on roller skates with braids in her hair and you could pull on the strings on her body and they were all rubbery.  He said he'd like to trade it for this helicopter that he had that I always liked to play with when I visited him.  (It plays 'Happy Days are Here Again' when you wind up the propellers.)  I told him that I didn't think it was a fair trade but he assured me that it was.  So we traded and I have always had it on display in my office.

Once, when I was sick with a cold, he walked in the Florida heat to the pharmacy to get me some cold medicine when I didn't have enough sick leave to take off and go home.  When we were all put into this huge room in cubicles, he fought management against them putting the copier near my cube so that I would have a quiet place to work.  I don't know if he is still alive or not but I am sure he is retired and enjoying life to the fullest.  It will always be the small acts of kindness that I remember from him. 

By Grace Alone -

- T