The Power to do Good
We attended a wedding a few weeks ago. It was a Catholic wedding and as a Lutheran I could follow along pretty well. Many of the rituals were very similar, but not quite the same as ours. They meant the same thing, but I had to read the words to keep from actually saying the wrong words (from memory) out loud. We sat back to listen to the sermon. The priest said that we have the “power to do good” in his sermon. I kept thinking about it. I wanted to use those words for a blog. They hit home. The problem was I could not figure out how to put it into words.
That was the problem. The idea is to put good into action. It hit me in Brasil, IN. The kiosk at the little
Pilot did not have “showers” on the screen. It was no big deal. I just got in line. There were only two people in front of me and it was a day when I was not in a hurry. The first driver paid for his fuel and left his card on the counter. The next guy grabbed the card, and chased him across the fuel islands to give him back his card.
Then the clerk asked me what I wanted as that driver was coming back in. I said that he was there first. He just said “go ahead”. The clerk said that I did not have any showers on my card. It was Wednesday. I had purchased 50 gallons on Friday of the previous week. I had a heavy load and could not fuel up. Besides I could fill up at our local stop after I dropped that heavy load. The following Monday I had fueled just north of Oklahoma 
City and then showered. I should have had a shower coming. And I have never been denied a free shower-after showing them that I had one coming. Before I could say anything that guy piped up. ”Give him one of mine.”
That is the power to do good. How could I not hold the door for someone after that? That afternoon I had to park at a small truck stop in Indiana near my Thursday morning appointment. It is a small truck stop that is poorly laid out. To park in the back row where I was, you had to blind side in. Since I arrived early I chose one of those. As the afternoon I witnessed all kinds of behavior at this truck stop. Drivers were in a hurry. Often as drivers tried to back into spots other truckers would pass them and honk their horns. I jumped out of my truck several times to help spot a truck in. Other drivers began doing this too. Often it would get to where you had two spotters. This helped tremendously.
Conversations were started. Drivers with Peterbilt hats talking to guys with Freightliner hats. Great conversations about the industry. We had civil conversations about things from automated manual transmissions, diesel exhaust fluid, and even ELDs (gasp). We used the power to be good to each other. We did not accomplish world peace or anything like that. But, we were able to slow it down a little bit and realize that truckers have the power to do good, and often do.