Good Folk

The other night, I was exiting a parking garage when I realized I had lost my ticket. I had gone to pick up a package from the mall, and I must have misplaced it when I was in the store, or maybe it had fallen out of my pocket. Either way, it had turned what was normally free parking into something relatively expensive. As I tried, with no avail, to find my ticket on a night that was both cold and raining, unusual for my neck of the woods, I could sense some frustration mounting. Perhaps the woman on the other end of the intercom also sensed the same, because she said “is the gate open?” I saw that indeed it was, and after asking if that meant I could go (no response) I hurriedly said a loud thank you, got back into my car, and left. She never told me her name. I never asked for it. It’s likely that brief interaction will be the only one of our lives. But it’s just one of the most recent examples of how my life had been touched by one of the Good Folk.

As we go through life, it’s easy to focus on the bad people. We see them in the news every day. So and so has stolen a bunch of money. So and so has murdered several people. So and so created a policy that will hurt lots of people, perhaps inadvertently or carelessly. And even in our personal lives, I’m sure we all remember the coworker who took credit for our work, the romantic interest who spurned our advances, the bully who humiliated us in public, or the person who overcharged us, defrauded us, or straight up stole from us.

But do we devote enough time to thinking about the Good Folk? At least in my life, there have been literally hundreds, if not thousands, who have helped me in ways big and small. Some stick out, usually at the times when I’ve been at my lowest, like the Calculus teacher who sat with me on the steps in front of her office when I was having a tough time in school, or the friend who got me my first internship when I had few other options, or the classmates who let me sleep in their living room for a year, the ones who helped me move when I didn’t have a car, or the friends who found me a job when I was broke, or the professor who would invite me over for tea and cookies. And there are others, like the family friend who taught me programming in Visual Basic, or the one who gave me my first job installing computers, and the second one, and the classmate who recommended me to my first job after college. There have been so so many, and the sad truth is that for most of them, the bulk of the time I’m going to be able to spend with them has passed. Indeed, a few of them sadly have passed away, and for others, the tyranny of distance and time will probably make it hard for us to spend a huge amount more time together.

But I do remember them, and I think about them, and indeed while nobody would claim that I have lucky girl syndrome, being a man of rather average or even below average attractiveness, I have been quite lucky to have had the company of many of the Good Folk. Maybe I’ll ask Shalosh to help me compose those hundreds of letters one day, or maybe I’ll find a way to reach out and add a few more words to the sum of our interactions.

In the mean time, Shalosh and I have written this ode:

Oh Good Folk, you bring us light
In darkness and in bleak times, delight
You calm our fears and wipe our tears
With gentle souls and kind words dear

From deep talks to shared laughter
You show us paths to journey after
You share your knowledge, your passion too
And open our eyes to different views

The memories we hold so dear
Of moments spent with you before
We only wish for a bit more time together
Forever grateful for your kindness, forever.