“It was back in the mid-1960s, I was 10 or 11 years old and had a paper route. Whilst on that route, riding my bicycle down a gravel road, the chain came off (as it was wont to do on occasion) and jammed the wheel causing me to lose control and get thrown to the gravel.
On top of the shock, scrapes, and small cuts, one of my fingernails got ripped most of the way off, and I was bleeding rather steadily. A friend was with me, and he took over and did the rest of my route for me while I walked home — because with my bad hand I could not put the chain back on the bicycle and I had not thought to ask my friend to do so before he left with my remaining papers.
A man in a Co-op van stopped and offered me a ride. Remember, this is the 1960s and we didn’t have all the warnings about not accepting rides from strangers, so I agreed readily, tears streaming down my face and my hand and various other parts aching. He put my bike in his van and drove me home. There, he unloaded my bike, picked up my mother — who had no transportation — and drove her and me to the hospital.
I thought that was pretty nice. He didn’t know us, saw a child injured and crying, diverted from his work to ensure I got safely home, and thence to the hospital. Since that day I’ve always had a good feeling about the Co-op, no matter that it probably wasn’t company policy, but this driver’s personal decision.
As an aside: that is why, when wearing your company’s colors (logo, whatever) you should always be on best behavior. What you do DOES reflect on the company. Fifty-odd years and I’ll always give Co-op the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, I was once treated rudely by the employees of one B and H Photo store, and I’ve never gone back there again. That employee of the Co-op no longer works there — he’d be in his 70s at best by now — and the employees who treated me rudely at B and H may or may not still work there. But their respective companies are still reaping the results of their employees’ actions, one favorably, the other unfavorably.”
