There are days when I know that errands will eat up my lunch hour and there won’t be any time that is mine to claim. That is what I thought would happened yesterday. That and nothing more. Going to the bank and filling up my car with gas before the rains arrived was on my lunch agenda.
The gentleman in front of me at the gas pump was elderly. He was someone Norman Rockwell would have immediately noticed. He wore a little cap and his pants were hiked up (or is it hitched up?). His face was slender and wrinkled and his eyes had little expression. His head was down, his shoulders were bent as if carrying a heavy burden and he shuffled when he walked. But then it happened. A most wonderful transformation. He lifted his head and smiled. His eyes began to twinkle. His wrinkled face almost immediately took on a boyish look. He stopped pumping gas and waited - waited until the fire truck pulled up to the diesel pump on the other side of our gas pumps. He waited until the fireman jumped out of the truck and he shouted, “I LOVE FIRE TRUCKS! I ALWAYS HAVE! I LOVE FIRE TRUCKS!” The fireman walked to him and asked, “Would you like to take a look at her?”
It was as if, at that very moment, the elderly man remembered how he felt when Santa Claus placed in his hands his first toy fire truck. I was overjoyed for the man to the point of tears.
(And I thought my lunch hour wouldn't amount to anything. Ha!)
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