Since I suspect not everyone wants to celebrate all of our Presidents today, I will note that it is also Random Acts of Kindness Day. So today I'm celebrating a man whose random act of kindness changed the course of my life. I know a lot of us are down, mad, frustrated, and worried, right now. This is a reminder that there’s always something we can do—and sometimes the smallest of acts can have the biggest of impacts. In ninth grade, I needed a hard lesson. I was ashamed of where I came from. My parents were recovering from a bankruptcy brought on by my littlest sister’s heart surgery, her ongoing disability, and associated medical bills. We were broke, and it showed. I did what I could with my Salvation Army clothes and tried to hide as much of the rest as I could. Like our car, an old brown rusted out Ford van, that frequently rumbled and sputtered — and had a knack for sliding out of service when we needed it the most and could least afford to fix it.
Through a combination of skill, charitable billing, and forgiven debts, our neighborhood mechanic, Winston, a minor hero of this story, kept us on the road. Given the nature of that relationship and our predicament, however, non-critical issues with the vehicle had to be tolerated, including a set of brakes that screeched horribly every time we slowed down. I shielded this blatant proof of our financial position from the public eye by having my dad, on days when he drove me to school, drop me off at the bottom of the hill, far from the front doors, and then dashing away from him and the van as quickly as possible.
Things went well! I made some friends, almost dated my first ninth grade crush, and raised my profile from bottom rung uncool to slightly below average. Then, a couple months into the year, I got my big break: I was assigned a project with Jennifer. Jennifer was a significantly cooler and surprisingly nice girl who lived across town by the mall and had attended our other middle school. Fortunately, this meant that she had no legacy impression of my social standing. One day, near the end of the project, she invited me over to her house to finish it. It was a dream. Her mom picked us up and drove us to their beautiful home in the fancy area of town. We breezed through the project, crushing name-brand snacks and soda (their house didn’t have a single yellow box item in it!), sneaking in some TV time, and enjoying the afternoon. My imagination filled with future visits, introductions to friends, and maybe the occasional party invite. After a few hours, her father, Mr. H, came through the garage door. Mr. H was, to capture it in one word, formidable. Tall, thick, deep-voiced, sincere, and, to me, imposing. He greeted me in a perfectly pleasant manner, and I replied as best I could, stuck somewhere between fear and awe. He talked to Mrs. H for a bit while Jennifer and I wrapped things up, and then he came in and said something along the lines of “Son, you’re welcome to stay, but I understand from Mrs. H that you’re headed home for dinner?” “Yes, Sir.” “Well, then let’s get you on home.” That, of course, was the last thing I wanted. There was no way on earth that I was going to let Jennifer see my neighborhood or house yet, and I had prepared myself for the possibility.
“Oh no, don’t worry, Sir, I told my dad I would call him when we were done. I’ll walk down and he can pick me up on the corner.” Boom. Pickup on the corner. No sight or sound of our van. No view of our house or neighborhood. Foolproof. Except… Mr. H was old school. “No, no, no. There’s no need to call your dad or for him to go to that trouble. You came over here to do the work. I’ll give you a ride home.” I pushed back. “Really, Sir, it’s ok. It won’t be any trouble for him. We already planned for it (we hadn’t). He’ll probably be disappointed if things change. If I could just use the phone…” Mr. H looked at me like I had lost my mind. “Son, you’re our guest,” he said with an indisputable tone of finality. “Let’s load up.” Jennifer smiled at me. I smiled weakly back and followed her to the garage. I wasn’t sure if I should be thrilled or even more concerned, but in the garage was a big beautiful black Cadillac. Jennifer got into the front seat next to her dad and I opened the door behind her and climbed in. It was far and away the nicest car I had ever been in. “Alright, where to?” he asked as he backed out of the driveway. “We’re on the east side past school,” I replied, the wheels turning swiftly in my mind. “I can just give you directions if that’ll work.” “That’ll work.” It was nearly six o’clock and the sun was starting to go down. As we left their neighborhood I began plotting a course. I needed to eat up as much daylight as possible and avoid the worst landmarks on the way in. I knew I had to approach our house from the far side to avoid the corner gas station known locally as “ghetto” gas, but the street before ours was way too ragged, so I couldn’t have him turn there. Plus that street had public housing on the other end that he might be aware of. The only real option was to loop all the way around the south side of town and then back up to my house from the east. I gave him the occasional direction. Left. Right. Straight. A few blocks down. At first he followed the directions without paying attention, chatting with Jennifer and me about school and our day. But at some point he gave me a long look in the rearview mirror. “Son, are you sure you know where you’re headed?” He asked me after a particularly strange turn. “Oh yes,” I replied, “I’ve lived in the same neighborhood since we moved here when I was really little.” “Where is it again?” “Kind of down from the highway patrol…” I answered, which was vague enough to encompass a massive area. “Streets?” “Dunklin… and… um… Ewing.” Ewing was a super tiny street by that house basically no one would know. He looked back at me again, but didn’t say anything this time. From that point on he let me guide him without question. As we turned to go up the hill on Dunklin I felt a sense of relief. We had gone the nicest possible way and Jennifer had hardly paid attention. I winced a little as we rolled past the crumbling house two doors down from ours, but I diverted their attention by starting my good-byes and pointing ahead to our house so he would know where to stop. Following the line of my own finger, though, my heart sank. I never came up to our house from that direction or paid any attention to it, but at that moment I realized that that whole side of the house was shedding paint. Like a molting lizard. Big chunks missing everywhere and paint scales just barely clinging to it. My parents had recently done their best to paint the house — my mom nearly caught it on fire at one point with a heat gun — but they hadn’t had the time or money to paint the entire thing. So they hadn’t done the east side, presumably reasoning that people rarely came that way and it was the least exposed. As the car slowed to a stop in front of our house, for the first time I looked at our house with fresh eyes and really truly noticed everything . The patchy yard. The broken curb and twisted sidewalk. Our stuff scattered everywhere. I mumbled something nondescript about working on things or how busy everyone was or something like that, said a weak good-bye, and fled the car. I don’t remember hearing anything from Jennifer or her father. I was just trying to get out of there and move them along as quickly as possible. Then, as I hurried down the front walk to our porch, I heard the worst noise imaginable: a second car door shutting behind me. Someone else had gotten out. The sound took me to a new low. With nowhere to go and nothing else to do, I fortified my will and, slowly, I turned around. Looming across the top of that big beautiful black Cadillac stood Mr. H, looking down at me. The car was still running. He had closed his door so that Jennifer wouldn’t hear what he had to say. “Son,” he began, in his big deep voice. I forced myself to look at him. I was going to take it like a man, so he wouldn’t think less of me. He continued. “I want you to know that we were honored to have you at the house today. I am glad I got to meet you and that you’re my daughter’s friend.” He paused, looking past me at our house, and then looked back down at me. With complete sincerity, that I believed in my soul, he added: “You have a beautiful home and you’re going to do great things. I’m proud to know you and I’d be proud for Jennifer to come back anytime.” He didn’t wait for me to respond. That was it. He just opened the door back up, climbed in, and put the car in gear. Jennifer waved as they drove away, obviously not noticing a thing. To this day I tear up when I think about that moment. The moment when a man I didn’t know made the effort to understand me. And then took a moment to let me know, without telling me directly, that I could be proud of who I was and where I came from. That lesson couldn’t have come from my family. It couldn’t have come from inside the world I lived in. It had to come from outside. And if it hadn’t been for Mr. H, I don’t know if I would have ever been comfortable enough to just be me. I never saw him again, but that year was a turning point for me, a kid who had been entirely undistinguished up to that point. I studied hard and practiced hard. I made it to Yale on a Pell Grant. I went to that fancy east coast school and was never shy about where I came from and who I was. I looked up Mr. H. I wanted to tell him thank you. For everything. For lifting up a kid he didn’t know when he didn’t have to. But I never got a chance. He passed away unexpectedly while I was at school. Now, I make sure his legacy lives through me by never missing an opportunity to lift a kid up and let him know that he can be proud of where he comes from. Lucas Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy Lucas’s Substack, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe.
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Monday, February 17, 2025
Changing the World
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