Asilomar State Beach, Pacific Grove, California
Sunday morning, I drove down to our favorite breakfast spot in Monterey, Rosine’s, a fifty-year downtown fixture famous for its three-layer cakes. In front of a bank, on the sidewalk, stood several trash cans with garbage strewn about, the apparent work of seagulls looking for breakfast. On occasion, I’ll pick up street trash, usually around our neighborhood, but this time I thought, no, there’s too much, and it’s too gross. Someone working for the bank will have to do it, and then I didn’t give it a second thought.
Being a Sunday morning regular at Rosine’s, I greeted the wait staff by name and ordered my favorite veggie omelet. It was even better than usual. I paid the check and headed towards my car. A woman in a bright pink T-shirt and black pants was picking up a piece of trash. As I rounded the corner, I noticed she had cleaned up the whole mess. “Oh wow, you cleaned all that up”? “Yeah,” she said with a sheepish grin. “Well, I didn’t want it to end up in the bay.” “Thank you so much,” I said. “You’re an angel.”
This woman in pink has been popping in and out of my mind ever since. She wasn’t looking for a pat on the back. There was no merit. What touched me was her selfless generosity and her willingness to roll up her sleeves and do the work herself. It reminded me that hope often lives in the simplest acts of generosity.