Reflections by a Nice Guy

(Run originally 4/22/04 on our old site)

Ernie Simpson

The first part of this little think piece from Ernie is in reaction to a piece on my personal site about you never really knowing when you’re going to run into an old friend. -tlp-

Great stories, old friend.

Years ago, the family and I got off the plane in Orlando for a few days at Disney world, and I heard a voice in the terminal holler, "Hey, Mr. Simpson!" I turned, and it was Bobby Neal, lead guitar for Rick Nelson. Bobby was one of my students in the little town of Cooter, MO, back in 1962. It was great to see him. He was in town doing a concert with the Rick Nelson group.

Sadly, he also was on the plane that crashed some time later, killing those members of the Rick Nelson band.

I have always believed it's a good thing to behave yourself no matter where you are, since you may run into someone from home! Ha!

Coming back to work this noon, I turned on the industrial drive where our plant is located, and a lady was stopped in the street in front of me, waving at an oncoming service truck of some kind. The guy stopped, and she was talking to him very animatedly, and I thought it might have been a friend or her husband or boyfriend she had spotted coming back to work.

No, it was obvious when the guy leaned out the window and started pointing to a street and direction farther in front of her. The traffic started to back up behind each vehicle, people trying to get back to work after lunch. The discussion continued for a long moment until, finally, the lady drove on, seemingly understanding the directions she had just been given.

It occurred to me, as I sat waiting for the conversation/directions to be conveyed, that no one in the long line of cars behind each vehicle became impatient or honked or gestured. Everyone was calmly and patiently waiting in the middle of the street for the woman to understand where she was to go before she drove away.

As hustle and bustle we have become in our society, it was a nice thing I saw, all those folks with traffic backing up, still patient enough to allow help to be given to someone lost in that industrial area. I wonder, too, how it would have been somewhere else. That little gesture from those people reminded me somehow of a time long ago, maybe gentler, and kinder. And, too, truly that good manners have not been lost on everyone over the years. For that, I'm glad.

Reminded me of the White County of my youth.