August 5, 2020 --

Incident No. 1:

At about 4 p.m., the afternoon of Wednesday, July 8, LPR was caught in a torrential downpour in The Bronx, near the driveway to an apartment building garage. There was a tree near the driveway and LPR stood under the tree try to get some shelter from the storm.  Just then a car backed into the driveway and stopped.  A woman got out of the car, in the rain, went to the rear of the car and opened the trunk.

LPR felt sorry that the woman needed to get an item out of the trunk in the downpour..  LPR thought that the woman was going to return to her car and back into the garage, getting soaked in the meantime.  But the woman did not return to her car; she  headed to LPR, carrying an umbrella, which she handed to LPR.

How am I going to get this back to you, LPR asked.  Don't worry about that;  one of the ribs is broken, anyway, she answered.  I just didn't want you to get drenched.  Only then did she return to her car and backed into the garage.

Incident No. 2:

LPR's first outing to Rockaway Beach was on Thursday, July 9. To get to Rockaway, LPR decided to take the No. 7 bus to the A train at 207th Street, then take the train to Broad Channel and change to the shuttle to get to the beach. Getting off the bus, LPR bought a Times and Post, at a candy store at the steps to the subway, and continued on his way.  Only after the train began to move, LPR realized that he left his sunglasses in the candy store. 

There was nothing he could do but continue on his trip and hope that the sunglasses would still be in the store on his return. 

As the train took more than one hour to get to Rockaway and  LPR stayed at the beach for a few hours and then took more than another hour to get back to the candy store, LPR was not confident he would find his sunglasses on his return. 

As it happened, the person running the store on LPR's return was not the person in the store when LPR bought the newspapers.  Not too confident, LPR asked this replacement shopkeeper if by any chance a pair of sunglasses was found in the store.   The shopkeeper looked at LPR as if he had no idea what LPR was referring to.  But then, from behind the counter, he turned to his left, reached over, picked up[ an item, and, showing it to LPR, asked, You mean these. Yes, LPR answered immediately, thank you!.  As the shopkeeper handed the sunglasses to LPR, LPR offered several dollar bills as thank you.  Don't worry, the shopkeeper, said, rejecting the money.

Once again, LPR said thank you, left the shop, and thought that he will thank the two shopkeepers by coming back to make purchases whenever he can.   

Just imagine, a customer must have handed the sunglasses to the first shopkeeper (rather than keep the sunglasses for himself), then that shopkeeper must have told his replacement to give the sunglasses back, if the owner returns to claim them, which happened some six hours or more, later.

LPR offers these incidents as expressions of the authentic -- readiness to help others -- spirit of America.