Passing It...Backwards

After I left coaching a training group this week, I turned left instead of my normal right. I needed gas (as usual :-) and had to run a quick errand. After sitting through the stop light, I turned my blinker on to turn right into the gas station. As I was about to turn in, a homeless man with a cart neatly stacked with two suitcases and a smaller bag strapped down to it, was coming my direction, not quite to the driveway I needed to enter, but close. Instead of rushing to beat him, I simply sat there, with my blinker hypnotizing the moment. The cars behind me were in much more of a hurry, as I heard two different horns honk. I continued to calmly sit there. I wasn't in a hurry and neither was the man I was waiting for.

As he moved slowly in front of me, I was reminded that I had seen him a couple times before in this area. It had surprised me then, as this community didn't seem a likely location for homeless activity. However, this man appeared to have everything but a home. He kept himself tidy. He walked with confidence. He had a bounce in his step. He had belongings he kept stacked and bundled on his cart. Yet he was obviously homeless. 

He crossed the driveway I was patiently waiting for and to the delight of the rushed cars behind me, I turned right. Now I needed to take another immediate right to get where I needed to go. As I did, the man and his cart took a quick left, again, across the next driveway I needed. So for a second time, I sat there patiently, wondering where he laid his head down at night in this neighborhood of houses and schools. As he shuffled in front of me for the second time, I considered his circumstances, thinking of the changing seasons and how the intense Texas heat would soon morph to cold Texas nights and make outdoor sleeping miserable. 

He finally made his last cross in front of me and I zipped in behind him to the gas pumps that long awaited my arrival. I pulled in, hopped out, grabbed my card and then remembered my Rewards card. Needed that! It would drop my gas price another 10 cents. I rounded the back of my truck and headed quickly to the door of the small attendants booth...and there he was in my path again! For a third time, I waited as this time he parked his cart and sauntered into my path. He made it inside ahead of me and by the time I arrived inside he already had a conversation going with the gas attendant. They were passing a Rewards card back and forth.

The attendant had her manager there who apparently was training her. The manager now had the Rewards card in his hand and as I walked in he raised his eyebrows at me with a perplexed look of surprise.

"Ma'am, this gentleman has some Reward points on his card and would like to give them to someone," he said with a smile, taking my card to see what was on it.

"The homeless man piped in, "Yes, I've racked up quite a few points and someone should use them. How about you?" he asked very seriously considering the transaction.

The manager came around with my Rewards card, handed it back, and said,"He just gave you 10 extra cents a gallon. Your card only had enough points for 10 cents a gallon off. He just gave you 20 cents off each gallon."

I was reluctant to take it, thinking it should give it to someone at the pumps that didn't have a Rewards card at all. Then I looked at the homeless man, in his US Navy ball cap, the Wounded Warrior project tshirt, with the twinkle in his eye, and the smug grin on his face, and I knew this gift wasn't the first this man had given me. It was worh so much more than the monetary reward on the card. 

We walked out together, I thanked him for the Rewards and then asked him if he was former military. "Yes," he said with conviction. "Germany."

Looking him in the blue eyes I again said, "Thank you, sir," and this time for reasons I knew I had only scratched the surface of.

As he went on his way and I stood there filling up my truck (at what came out to $2.94/gallon, thank you, sir!!) I thought about what had just surprisingly transpired and how I was so thankful I had not raced through the moment and missed this entire scenario. It wasn't at all about me, but about the man I was watching pushing his cart back through the parking lot. He no longer appeared homeless to me, but I now saw the dignity and purpose with which he walked, even looking a little taller, as he shuffled back to the doors of Randall's. 

Probably to accrue more gas Rewards on his Randall's card. :-)