Good

Today I turned on the television. Which was a bad idea.

Whenever you’re having a good day, it’s best not to turn on a TV. Because it will bum you out. The 24-hour news channels rarely broadcast positive stories, and will cause you to ask yourself, “Where exactly is this world going, and why are we all in this pretty little handbasket?”

Bad stuff is mostly what you see on the news. But what about all the good stuff? This can’t be the full story, can it? Why don’t we hear the rest? After all, every day tiny, life-altering, legitimate miracles, and beautiful gifts from On High occur in our fallen world. Craft beer is only one example.

Another example is the story just told to me by a man in Texas:

Our story takes place in Fort Worth. Years ago. A gas station. There is a young man outside the gas station. He’s dancing. Over by the ice machines. And I mean really dancing. Breakdancing, to be exact. Moonwalking. Backflips. The works.

It’s quite a sight. There are several customers standing in a group, watching him because this is not something you see every day unless you are a cast member on Soul Train. The young man’s finale ends with him doing the splits. All males wince.

When the dancing finishes, everyone applauds.

“Why’re you breakdancing at a gas station?” a young woman asks. Which is a reasonable question.

“Because I’m having a baby!” the man says.

“That’s anatomically impossible,” says the cashier, who is taking a smoke break.

“My girlfriend is having a baby!” he says. “I’m going to be a dad!”

He starts dancing again. He’s a good dancer. People are going crazy. Clapping. Cheering. There isn’t a long face in the bunch.

Mid-dance, a truck driver in the group removes his cap and passes the hat around the impromptu audience. The hat starts filling up with money. Someone throws in a buck. Someone else tosses in a handful of change. Everyone starts pitching in.

The gas-station staff even gets in on the action. Soon the hat is weighted with cash. There is even a guy in the crowd who walks into the station and buys the young dancer a cheap celebratory cigar.

The young man is overwhelmed by the response from his admirers. He’s crying now. So the young man takes a moment and gathers everyone’s contact information. He enters phone numbers into his cell phone. He promises to send pictures of his child when the child is born.

Which he does.

On his child’s birthdays, baby pictures are sent to the random group of people via text message. This week, that child turns 6 years old.

And then there is the story about Charlie. He was riding his bike to work because (a) he is a musician, which meant that (b) he was broke. He rode his bike to work every day. One day, on the way to work, he saw a young man changing a tire on the highway shoulder. So Charlie stopped to help.

The man was bleeding, it turned out. He’d cut himself badly while changing the tire. So Charlie placed the man—a grown man—on the back of his bike.

“Hold on!” said Charlie. The young man bear-hugged Charlie as he frantically pedaled through traffic toward the hospital.

They were at a stoplight when a man in a truck saw the dynamic duo. The truck pulled alongside Charlie and his new friend. The window rolled down. The guy in the truck saw the bike and he compassionately said, “Which instrument do you play?”

No. I’m only joking. The guy in the truck actually asked where they were going. So Charlie told him they were heading to the hospital. The guy told them to get in. So Charlie loaded up his bicycle and his new friend into the truck.

The doctor was able to patch the guy up. Afterward, all three men drove back to the brokedown vehicle, only to discover that two police officers had already changed the tire. The young man’s car was good to go. So Charlie asked the man for a ride to work. Today, Charlie and that motorist are roommates. Today they play in a band together.

And now you know the rest of the story.