Dear Editor:
Good Samaritans are sometimes hard to find now a days. On Nov. 1, the first day of hunting season, I found two such people. In this day and age when people don’t like to get involved it is refreshing to know that there are people out there who will help you in a crisis.
I had been up to Thornbury to visit my elderly dad and was coming home to Fergus in the later part of the afternoon. I’d just turned off Highway 4 west of Flesherton onto Grey Road 14 when wham! a deer ran out of the trees by the side of the road right into the side of my van. The van was still drivable so I backed up a bit to be parallel with the dead deer.
I am old school and don’t have a cell phone, so now what? I waited for a bit and finally a guy in a half ton came along. He stopped, but said his cell phone had just died. He pulled the deer into the ditch so it wouldn’t be a distraction, then drove off.
The next guy was an older man and was old school like me. “A cell phone? Are you kidding?” So, I waited a bit longer. I was beginning to feel like the man in the Bible who’d gotten beaten up and was left dying in a ditch when three people walked by him. Finally, my good Samaritan came by!
Wally was his name. An 87-year-old gentleman who did have a cell phone. He said he’d look after everything, called the police and stayed with me until they came. What a blessing!
The police officer who came was also great. I know that many want the police defunded, but where would we be without them? The constable was also from Fergus and is working up in the Grey Bruce detachment. We also know his grandfather. It is nice to have a connection with someone. He had all the info done quickly and I was on the road again in short order. What a blessing!
Again I am reminded that we are called to be that good Samaritan to others. Whether we know them personally or not, whether they are the same nationality or not, or whether they have the same beliefs as us or not, we are called to be a light in this dark world that seems to be getting darker by the minute.
I may never see these men again but I can ‘pay it forward’ to someone else who is ‘lying in a ditch ‘ somewhere and needs a hand or even an encouraging word.
Glenda Newson,
Fergus