Looking Up or Down

By Roger Dean Kisner

I am not really sure what makes some people good and some people bad. Maybe "bad" is not the correct terminology to use. Maybe the question is what makes some people kind-hearted and others not so kind-hearted?

I had a friend who was involved in a automobile accident several weeks ago. She was badly in need of blood and the blood bank was short on supply. I ran to the telephone and I called almost everyone that I knew. Though polite, almost everyone of them was to busy to drop by and donate blood. In fact I cannot recall one of them who told me that they would actually help.

That incident took me back to many years ago when I was working as a EMT for Pennington Ambulance Service.

Junior, Wilber and I lived in a small room located at the back entrance of Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Georgia. Late one evening we brought several people into the emergency room who had been involved in an automobile accident. Both were in need of blood. Again the hospital was short on their blood supply. I ran to the telephone and I called everyone that I knew. Only one person showed up to donate.

Junior and I took the ambulance and we headed down-town to the Albany Theatre. I walked down the alley way where I knew that many homeless people were known to hang out. Sure enough there were about ten individuals standing around a small fire which they had built on the ground. I explained that we needed blood and that we needed it right away. Within minutes we had all ten people in the back of the ambulance and off to the hospital we headed.

Well, we lost one of the accident victims that night but the other one was saved. Thanks to ten kind-hearted people who had to stand out in the cold and had no where to go.

The night security guard, Mr Forester and Doctor McCall, the emergency room doctor, opened up the lunch room and they fed those nine men, and one woman all the turkey sandwiches, ice cream and hot coffee that they could hold.

Yes, I wonder what it is that makes some people more kind-hearted than others. Maybe when some people have nothing at all to lose they only look up. While many who have a lot to lose always seem to look down.

Stories from The Life and Times of Author, Roger Dean Kiser - http://www.rogerdeankiser.com.

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