In Which I Do a Good Deed

We were sitting on a metal bench in front of the Boulder Public Library, resting up for the half mile walk home. It was unusually peaceful; families in and out, borrowing or returning their bags of books. Once in a while, there's a discordant note: a homeless, drugged, or deranged person, muttering or sometimes shouting incoherently, dragging a dirty blanket or wheeling a stolen supermarket cart or bicycle. But yesterday there was an event. A large young man, 40ish, had lost his child. He asked us, "have you seen a boy with a red hat." No we hadn't, but we said we'd pay attention. The poor distressed guy ran from place to place in the park and in the adjacent parking lot, shouting "Zack."  As he became increasingly agitated, so did I. Is there a worse feeling of powerlessness than when you've lost contact with your child. As he became more and more frantic, I remembered Florence Dombey and Mrs. Brown, and Etan Patz, and Leiby Kletzky. After a few moments, I said to LERM, "if the boy with the red hat had come out of the library alone, we would have seen and noticed him. He's got to be inside the library and I'm going to find him." I walked into the building and almost immediately heard some high-pitched crying from somewhere in the stacks. In a few seconds I located the boy (four-years-old, I would guess). I said to him, "I know exactly where your father is and I'm going to take you to him." I took the boy's hand and walked out of the library -- almost immediately to encounter the crazed parent coming our way. I released the child and in a second he was in his father's arms. Father and son consoled each other. I sat back down on our bench, knowing that I had done a good deed. It was a very satisfying, human feeling. After a brief while, we walked home uneventfully.

Comments

[Sarah]

Well done! But why on earth didn't the father think to look inside the library?

[LERM]

When I saw Mr P the elder walking out of the Boulder Public holding in his left hand the right hand of a small boy in a red hat, I felt a small quiver of a thrill…..a quiet thrill, a private thrill. Now, the next morning, I’m thinking of the phrase, ordinary magic. Now,I realize that Mr P the elder is an ordinary hero. Unacknowledged, unassuming, an ordinary hero. Because I am LERM, I’m allowed to say this.