Smiles and waves

[Ozz]

The ad on TV from The ‘Discover Boating’ people, was about a family going through town waving at people, maybe you have seen it, the lady on the phone looking out the real estate office window, closed the blinds and frowned, many other business people and town folks also shunned the family. The husband and wife, son and daughter, were optimistic and kept up the friendly greeting with much the same result. When the scene shifted to their boating activities, the waves and smiles were greeted with reflected smiles and waves.
An interesting glimpse of human nature in action.
My wife and I were boaters, we helped people, and were helped by people, we found the smiles and waves were commonplace.
We are now in the Nomadic ‘tribe’ called Rv’ers, the commonality of this group has the same outgoing spirit that we experienced with boating.
I think the attitude of people within these groups feel more at ease about extending friendship, putting yourself at risk of being shunned, it’s a little embarrassing to be ignored when proffering yourself in this way.
I was working on a commercial air conditioning unit outside a building recently, when an oriental lady pulled up to me and asked where a Jewelry store was located. The address was on an ad., and She was quite frustrated, she had been driving all around looking for it. Her English was broken and a little hard for me to understand. It did not have the individual shop address, just the junction of 83rd. And Mission road. There were shops on all four corners of the busy area.
My first instinct was to tell her to call the business, as it could have been anywhere in a four block area, but I thought of the smiling, waving boaters, with the sour response that was given to them. I pulled my wireless phone out and called the number for the jewelry store to get an exact address and directions for the lady. It took all of three minutes of my time, and I know my customer would have approved of my doing this small act of kindness for a lady.
I can still see her smile. Maybe this ad that promotes boating, can be useful to all of us in our daily lives.

[brenkco]

Ozz,
We have been boaters are entire lives and just got a new pontoon boat(party barge). DW was explaining the ad to me that you saw. We were just down in Pacifica, CA for the weekend visiting mom and family friends from our old neighborhood. We met some really nice folks at the RV park. We are new to Rving but have found the same wonderful people as with boating.

Good for you to help the lost woman....it is what this life is all about. Thanks for sharing and reminding us all.

Ken

PS. I am having trouble balancing this 'work thing' with Rv and boat habits. It's clear that work has to go.....

Ken

[Ozz]

Ken, the 'shine' wears off that work deal very fast..... It's like being a kid again, goofing off is fun!

[Dustytuu]

Good for you Ozz to help that woman. It does not surprise me because this is what you do.

We try to help people. When we left Branson today, pulled into an RV park up the road, a woman was having trouble with her awning, the wind was blowing hard. Her husband was working or someplace. We were setting up; stopped what we were doing and had my husband go over to help her roll her awning up.

[Ozz]

Good on you, for your helpful nature. I hope you had a good visit in Branson, wish we could have been there, but I had work lined up here at home. We have been super busy on the house, and I have been working most every day on jobs. I guess we are making progress, the house is all torn up, with construction materials everywhere. I had to get my hot tub out of it's room, as it was leaking. I wore out a Sawzall, cut the tub in 6 big chunks, I'll post some pictures.
I hope your house sells quickly, sorry you had to lower the price. We are month's away from even showing ours. Ugh.......

[capn chris]

Former boaters here, too! As the saying goes, "I like it when people wave using all of their fingers!"

[Ozz]

I also like it when they use all their fingers...
On reflection, in my story I think Rugs are Oriental, people are Asian.
Ozz

[Dustytuu]

Ozz we are still OK on the price even though we lowered it. Will come out OK if it sells. Has acreage.
One thing good is we don't have to sell. But want to sell.