When I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from my class walking home from school. His name was Kyle. He looked as if he was carrying all his books.
I thought to myself, "Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday? He must be a nerd."
I had quite a weekend planned ahead (parties and a football game with my friends) so I shrugged my shoulders and went on.
As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running towards him. They ran into him, knocking him down and causing all his books to fly out of his arms. His glasses went flying and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him. He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes. My heart went out to him. Hence, I jogged over to him and tried to help him as he crawled around looking for his glasses with a tear in his eye.
I handed him his glasses and said, "Those guys are jerks. They really should get lives."
He looked at me and said, "Hey, thanks!"
There was a big smile on his face.
It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude. I helped him pick up his books and asked him where he lived. It turns out that he lived near me so I asked him why I had never seen him before. He said he had gone to a private school previously. That was when I realized I had never hung out with a private school kid before. We talked all the way home and I helped carried some of his books. He turned out to be a pretty cool kid. I invited him to play a little football with my friends and he agreed.
We hung out all weekend and the more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him. He was equally popular with my friends. When Monday morning came, I saw Kyle with a huge stack of books again.
I stopped him and said, "Boy, you are really going to build some serious muscles with this pile of books everyday!"
He simply laughed and handed me half the books. Over the next four years, Kyle and I became best friends. When we were seniors, we began to think about college. Kyle decided on Georgetown and I was going to Duke.
Tue Feb 28, 2012 1:02 am