Kathy Hancock's Facebook note about how people amaze her inspired me to write about some amazing people I've met. First of all, I am amazed at the number of times my various lost purses have been returned, all the money included. The most amazing time was when I went Christmas shopping in Spokane. I had just cashed my paycheck and was planning on a real Christmas binge. The first place I stopped was the Salvation Army because I wanted to buy Lynne a tricycle. (Ok, my splurges are a little more conservative than most.)

I carried my trike and my daughter back to the car, set everything down on the pavement behind my car so I could open my truck. I had no more than shoved in the trike than Lynne decided to take off across 5 lanes of heavy traffic. I ran across the street, piacked her up, probably paddling her butt, shoved her in the car and drove to Sears. When I got there, no purse. I went back to the Sally Ann, but of course the purse was gone. The police said, "Oh, you'll get your purse back. Here's what will happen. Someone picked up the purse already. He's taken out the money and dropped the purse at another location. Someone else will pick it up and turn it in."

So much for Christmas. I drove back home to Metaline in just a bit of a funk, you can imagine. Five days later I get a card in the mail from the Spokane police department. My purse had been returned. When I picked it up, all, yes all, the money was there. I wanted to leave a reward, but they had no idea who turned it in. That scenario has repeated itself over and over again in my life.

A more recent "people are amazing" experience also occurred in Washington...Seattle. My Vancouver, BC bus got a very late start so I ended up needing to find my way to the Seatac at about 1:00 a.m. The bus driver told me I had a choice. If I was willing to pay $75, I could take one of the cabs lined up at the station, or I could walk up the street 3 blocks and catch the city bus for 50 cents. (My numbers are approximate, but you get the idea.) Being a cheap skate, and feeling as though I'd lived 70 great years and could afford to take a risk, I opted for the bus I walked up the street 3 blocks. Wrong way. I walked down the street 3 blocks. It wasn't there. I asked a scuzzy young gentleman if he knew where I could catch a bus to the airport. "I think it's over that way 3 or 4 blocks. It wasn't there. I met two other people; they all sent me in different directions. (Remember now, I am traveling, so I'm toting luggage.) Finally I meet a young man, maybe 40, limping along with a cane. He says, "Here I'll show you." We walk up a hill two blocks, left a couple of blocks, and then down an outside stairwell, perhaps it was an escalator. I of course wondered where he was taking me. But I followed. What I didn't know is the the bus system in Seattle runs 5 floors below the city streets. After the third escalator flight he leads me to an elevator door. He says, when you get in, press the platform button and it will take you to where the airport bus stops. As I entered the elevator, I asked him, "Are you an angel to all the people you meet?"

"I try to be," he said as the door closed. I go to the platform and check the schedule. Yup, the airport bus would arrive in 15 minues. It was only then that I realized that I had no American money. There happed to be an Etheopian imigrant also waiting for the bus. I offered to trade him two tunies, two dollar Canadian coins for the bus fare. He gave me the fare, but wouldn't take the tunies. (I have since discovered that you cannot exchange Canadian coins in American banks, so it wouldn't have done him any good anyway.)

I board the bus, and it is packed full, 2:30 in the morning by now, and the bus is full. The man sitting across from me was going to the airport, but I think the rest of them were just riding the bus because they had no place to go. At one point the driver pulls up to the curb to let a man board. "You're all wet!" she says to him. He has obviously soiled himself.

"I know. Will you let me on anyway?" The driver welcomed him aboard.

Now while I was waiting for the bus in Vancouver, I read a book I picked up there. It was about the short trip to the after life of a woman who died temporarilly. She meets God, who in this version of the afterlife takes on the image of a beloved acquaintance of the new "inductee." They have a love discussion, and at one point the lady asks him, "What do you think of the people back there on earth." God smiles fondly and says, "Oh, I love them every one. They struggle so, and they have so much compassion for on another, they suffer so. I love them every one."

When I gazed back at the gaggle of people on that bus, I thought of that line and said to myself, "Yes, and God loves you, every one."