---
title: The kindness of strangers and their umbrellas
author: George Mandis <george@mand.is>
date: 2014-07-07
tags: post, post, travel, short, detroit, umbrella
---

<p>I feel like I've touched on this before but traveling makes me think about serendipity, the kindness of strangers and how little gestures can have grand impacts.</p>
<p>Today was a long travel day — I'm eyeing my bed as I type this, giving serious consideration to shutting this down and plopping down in it — starting around 7am in Detroit. I was leaving a <a title="Flying out to Detroit" href="/2014/07/flying-out-to-detroit/">wedding</a> and making my way back to Portland by way of a couple buses and a couple planes.</p>
<p>The weather had been perfect the whole weekend but got a little rainy this morning. I waited for what looked like a dry patch, threw my bag on my back and went to go stand at the bus stop next to <a href="https://www.chestersinternational.com/">Chester's Chicken</a> / liquor store combo and across the street from a <a href="http://www.bigboy.com/">Big Boy</a>. <span class='footnote'>(Dude, the midwest... I don't even know what to say. I am culturally west coast, through-and-through, and I confirmed it for myself this weekend. I genuinely <em>loved</em> visiting there, but I'm not sure I could live there.)</span> As I stood there the rain came and went in patches. I heard a voice behind me.</p>
<p>"Sir," said a middle-aged sounding woman in a serious tone. I turned around. She was holding an umbrella out the driver-side door. My Oregon pride wanted to turn down the offering but I didn't even hesitate.</p>
<p>"Thank you."</p>
<p>"I know you'll be standing out there a long time." She smiled and drove off.</p>
<p>Despite the ominous foreshadowing for an extremely late bus and missed flights the bus came a short while later, but the umbrella came in extremely handy. The rain picked up and started coming down hard. By the time I got off the first bus to make my transfer — By the McDonald's, past the A&amp;W, in case you were wondering — I started laughing at the thought of how soaked I'd have been without it.</p>
<p>The kindness of strangers makes the world go round and traveling, for whatever reason, has a way of making me more open and receptive to it. Maybe someday I'll figure out the secret to perpetually sustaining that openness to things; welcoming goodness into my life.</p>