In our family, my wife is known as Mrs. Goodwrench. Seriously. I can not count the times I have watched her take some broken thing apart, fix it, and put it all back together again. She loves the little tedious things. She loves tools. Heck, she loves plumbing! The plumbing thing in and of itself makes me wonder if perhaps I didn't marry an alien, but as long as I'm not the one working under the sink I'm good with it. 

Back in South Dakota there lived a man fairly close to us who was a farmer. Delmer was his name, and he was a good guy. Sadly he was taken from this earth sooner than we'd have liked, but his legend lives on for certain. Delmer got wind of the fact that Mrs. Goodwrench wanted to drive a tractor. So, one afternoon I got a call from him saying to meet him down the road by Kyle's house, so we did. When we arrived there was Delmer on his big old John Deere with the disc still hooked up. He'd been out work the fields, and was on his way home, He was tired from the day's activities, but he opened the door and invited my wife into the cab. Mrs. Goodwrench was ecstatic and climbed aboard. After a short lesson on operations away they went down the road with my wife at the helm.

As they traveled toward Delmer's house they came upon a field that he had already worked. There they went off the road and out into the black dirt where Delmer had her lower the disc and start plowing. As they worked west through the field he explained all about the GPS system in the tractor and how by setting it properly the tractor was able to plow lines as straight as an arrow. She loved every minute of it. At the end of the field she raised the disc and they finished the trip into the farm yard. To say my wife was happy would be an understatement. Fact is she's still happy about it to this day. 

A simple act of kindness with long lasting positive implications. I'm pretty sure there's a lesson in there for all of us. How many times have we been presented with the opportunity to brighten someone's day? How many times have we let them "drive the tractor", and how many times have we just driven by? I'm reasonably certain we'd all be a lot better off if when presented with these choices we'd stop that tractor and open the door to the cab. Might be something for us to work on.