My youngest, and a buddy of his, found out that a free lunch can be very VERY scary. There's a "regular" who visits/deals with where the youngsters work, and he heard them bemoaning the fact that they had to move their trucks ASAP ... When said customer asked what was wrong, they told him the problems with the vehicles, and the customer asked if they'd like him to have them fixed. Thinking the guy was joking, they said "Sure!" An hour later two flatbed "tow" trucks showed up, loaded the vehicles, and away they went!!! The customer told them that if they changed their minds and wanted the trucks back, he wouldn't be insulted. My son came home that night, scared practically spitless about the "debt" he had incurred; he decided he was going to ask for his truck back the next day.
The other kid had made the same decision overnight, and both of them asked for their trucks back. Back the trucks came later that day; the other kid's truck had been fixed!! My son's truck hadn't been, but the parts -- new -- to do the job were neatly boxed in the bed of the truck. And the kid just called me to say [after an "almost all nighter" of work] that his truck was running!! So how much do they owe this guy who did this for them? Him they owe nothing except continued respect. But they both will be "paying forward" for quite some time before they consider things to be even. My son thinks he is in debt ... he doesn't look at everything he has been doing for at least the last five years as "building up his savings" ... he simply helps where he can, listens, looks for answers, provides a meal or a phone number/contact point, makes certain extra food and clothing and toys get to the women's shelter, helps friends and former classmates who don't want to go to parents to ask questions, trained as an EMT and is backup for the local fire department, used his time and his truck when the tornado struck just north of here a couple of years ago ... There is no such thing as a free lunch but, if you give freely of what you can spare and what you can share, somewhere down the road there is going to be someone there to step forward when you are in need of them. What goes around comes around -- thankfully the good stuff as well as the bad. I'll shut up now. l.d. ==== On Sat, 12 Apr 2003 17:39:17 +0000, J J Young wrote: > Ray Andrews wrote: >> didn't/don't believe in the "welfare mentality") ... it was my job to find a >> Latin translation, which I still haven't done ... but at least I'm still >> tryin. > Would that be a free lunch kind of translation you're looking for, or > do you pay for everything? <G> -- Arachne V1.71;UE01, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
