Sherry and I were enjoying a wonderful relaxation weekend in Hot Springs, Arkansas celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary. We had been waiting for a bus that provides free rides to points of interest in the area and were becoming extremely frustrated as our wait extended for over an hour and the bus was supposedly scheduled for every 30 minutes. Not sure exactly where the pick-up point was, we tried several locations to no avail. Sherry even tried to contact the bus company, but, as it was Saturday, there was no response. The people we asked at our hotel gave conflicting answers.
Finally, we decided to go to what seemed to be the most logical location, the corner on a main intersection. After waiting only a short time, another couple arrived and Sherry was chatting with them and learned they were also from our home town area and staying at our hotel. About the same time, a chap walked up to me and asked for the time. Appearing reasonably neat and clean cut, I responded “about 20 to, no a quarter to twelve”. He then asked “do you have a quarter?” My initial reaction was “sorry, no”. Then he asked “do you vote?”. At the same moment, I reached into my pocket and felt a coin. I saw that it was a shiny, well preserved Liberty Quarter and I handed it to the man saying, “You’re in luck”. Within moments the bus arrived. As we boarded, Sherry asked where the man was. Neither of us had seen him leave nor had any idea where he went.
A week later, as I was putting on a pair of house moccasins that I keep in the entry hallway, I picked up the right hand shoe to put it on and there, lying on the floor, was a shiny Liberty Quarter where the shoe had been.
Sherry: I then added this observation. What makes this such an interesting event is an earlier event – one that happened years ago while we were, also, vacationing. On that occasion, we encountered a rather neat, healthy looking young man sitting on the ground outside the door as we exited a restaurant who asked, “Can you spare a quarter?”
That time, in seeing that he was a strapping young man who appeared capable of working, we refused his request and got in our car and left. Both of us immediately felt that we should have given the man what he asked for and more. We quickly turned the car around and went back to the restaurant. Though our return took just moments, the man was nowhere in sight. He had just vanished! In discussing the incident, we both felt we had failed a test.
Was the Hot Springs incident another chance? It certainly appears so. On our way home, I was writing about the incident in my journal and as I wrote the words that George spoke as he handed the man the quarter, “you’re in luck”, from out of the blue came the thought “No, you’re in luck!”
We discussed the fact, while driving home, that a quarter gets you very little these days, ….. not even a cup of coffee, and that the encounter was not about the quarter, but about our ability to be compassionate and caring and open to life without JUDGMENT.
We must have been right – it wasn’t about the quarter. We passed the test this time and the quarter was returned. We now have the quarter framed and on display as a reminder of the wonderful lessons that the opportunity to give has provided.