Yesterday was one of those typically scorching hot summer days here in Sacramento.  Could be worse, but because of our location in the central valley of California, the humidity is not nearly so dire.  Still, it was hot enough to get me and the wife and daughter down to a small beach on the American River near Sac State with some friends.  A little leisure before the Fourth of July holiday.

            After romping around in the water with the kids for a couple hours and enjoying sandwiches and other picnic accoutrements, we hiked back to the car (death march 101) and headed back home.  On the way we needed to make a stop at our favorite little grocery store/butcher for some meat to throw on the barbee  for that evening’s dinner.  As we parked I noticed two of the store’s employees across the street standing on either side of a rather disheveled looking young man.  I recognized one of the employees as one of the store’s butchers, and he was holding what appeared to be one of their  signature sandwiches wrapped in familiar white butcher paper.  The butcher, I’ll just call him Bill, handed the man the sandwich and then all three of them walked back to the store.  I told my wife that I thought they caught the young man stealing a sandwich.  She asked how I knew and I said I could just tell (probably having to do with, one, my being a professional investigator and thus a great snoop and deducer of things none my business, and two, my being an amateur writer and thus a great snoop and deducer of more things none my business).

            As they got to the parking lot and passed by our car the employees were pointing toward the back of the store to a storage area full of cardboard boxes.  They got to the storage area and Bill  demonstrated to the young man how to break down a box.  The two employees left and the young man began to break down the boxes.

            I then told my wife that I was pretty sure the kid got caught ripping off a sandwich, and rather than call the police, Bill decided to give the kid the sandwich with the proviso that he break down some boxes to pay for it, which the kid seemed happy to do.  Once we got in the store I overheard Bill telling a fellow employee pretty much verbatim what I told my wife I thought had happened except he added that the kid didn’t have a dime on him.

            I’m not going to get into a long diatribe about this except to say that both my wife and myself thought that this was just about the most decent thing we’d seen in awhile.  I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that broke, hungry kid, and a guy using common sense and basic humanity to be able to see that no good could come from calling the cops for such a desperate act.  And yes, I know it’s a crime, but there are a lot worse things in the world than a young kid trying to eat.  He wasn’t stealing booze, it wasn’t armed robbery, he was just hungry.  Bill didn’t give the kid anything, he made him work, and that’s better than a freebie, after all give a man a fish and he eats one meal, but give him a fishing pole…  And maybe, just maybe, through Bill’s act of kindness, one little corner of the world became a little less hostile, a little less retributive, and truly a little more, yes, say it with me now, kinder and gentler.