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Neighborly thing to do

By RONDA RICH

The other day I was in the painful mode of trying to write by attempting to coax out words lodged stubbornly in my soul when the phone rang.

I welcomed the intrusion.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” a woman wailed sincerely when she heard my voice. “I dialed the wrong number.”

I was sorry, too. I was hoping for a longer conversation and, therefore, a reprieve from my self-inflicted agony.

“That’s perfectly all right,” I replied. From the noise level, I could tell she was on a cell phone.

“I was trying to get the bank,” she went on to explain. “And, I’ve forgotten the number.”

“Which one are you calling?”

She told me and since it’s a bank I use and since I have a good memory, I gave her the phone number.

“Thank you so much! This is wonderful!”

It’s also a Southern thing to do because we like to be helpful. It’s in our DNA.

We’re also very friendly. Someone called Mama’s house one day when I was there and 45 minutes later, she hung up the phone after talking about, among other things, the weather, traffic, her cold that kept hanging around and the sale price of fat-back at Winn-Dixie.

“Who was that?” I asked curiously.

“I don’t know. It was the wrong number.” She shrugged. “But she was real interesting.”

A few days before the lady looking for the bank called, I had dialed a wrong number from my cell phone, too, and gotten a stranger.

“Wait just a moment and I’ll look the number up for you,” the nice woman said.

I love moments like this when I am reminded of the innate goodness of people and how such kindnesses are the normal course of business for those people I proudly call mine. It is people and moments like these that lure others to the sunny, graciousness of the South. Who wouldn’t want to live among people like us?

One evening, I noticed in Mama’s kitchen, a calendar that charts the cycles of the moon and, therefore, is filled with lots of good information about when the best time is for planting, harvesting, weeding and various surgeries.

I don’t how she got it but it had been distributed by a funeral home about 60 miles away. I called and the funeral director answered. I asked about the calendars.

“Just got some in this week,” he replied. “Stop by and get ‘cha one.”

“I would but I live an hour away.”

“Then, I’ll mail it to you.”

“Really? I’ll send a check for the postage.” I couldn’t believe that someone would go to the trouble and expense, especially for someone who won’t be using their business.

After all, everyone knows you have to use a funeral home close by to where you live because your friends will travel only so far to see you after you’re dead and gone and not much use to them anymore.

“I’ll put it in the mail first thing tomorrow. Ain’t no charge. Happy to do it, ma’am. Stop in and visit with us when you’re over in our neck of the woods.”

And, sure enough, a few days later, the calendar arrived and with it another warm reminder of old-fashioned goodness. Maybe it’s not in style like it used to be, but I sure like the way that such old-fashioned goodness fits.

Just like a fleece-lined sweatshirt on a cool autumn morning, small kindnesses feel cozy and perfect.