There's Hope

I was recently at a major sporting event in Florida, and if you’ve ever been to one of those things in the middle of summer, you know the first thing you start looking for is shade.

I found a bench underneath a covered area and grabbed one corner of it. The roof was made up, at least partly, of solar panels, and there were little openings between them. One narrow strip of sunlight cut diagonally across the bench and the pavement. Otherwise, it was one of those rare little islands of shade everybody was hunting for.

A few minutes later, a group came over and sat down toward the other end of the bench. It looked like two dads and their two boys. The boys were probably eleven or twelve years old.

I didn’t pay much attention to them.

Everybody was doing the same thing—getting themselves together before heading into the event.

I carry one of those clear bags when I go into places like this, so before getting to security I usually take everything metallic out of my pockets—phone, wallet, whatever I’m carrying—and put it in the bag. It just makes getting through security easier.

What I had forgotten was that, for some reason, I actually had cash in my left front pocket.

And I’m not used to carrying cash anymore.

Apparently when I reached into my pocket to pull out my phone, I also pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, two fives, and two ones.

The Florida breeze took care of the rest.

I had absolutely no idea.

Behind me I suddenly heard someone saying,

“Sir. Sir, did you just drop some money?”

I reached into my pocket.

Oh shit.

“Yeah. A twenty and a couple of fives.”

They had already gotten it. One of the dads had some of it pinned underneath his foot before it could blow away.

I thanked them and made some comment about how I’m just not used to carrying cash anymore.

The dads and I had that little adult moment where everybody immediately understood.

“Yeah.”

None of us carries cash anymore.

Then one of the dads told me it was actually the boys who had spotted the money and called it out.

That changed the whole thing for me.

Now, I had a twenty, two fives, and two ones.

There were two boys.

I wasn’t giving them each a dollar. That just seemed petty.

I couldn’t exactly rip the twenty in half.

And I sure as hell wasn’t going to hand one kid twenty bucks and the other kid twelve and tell them to work it out, because before they made it to their seats somebody was going to be pissed off.

So I gave each boy a five-dollar bill.

I thanked them. I told them I appreciated what they had done and that what they did mattered.

Both of those boys held those five-dollar bills like they were holding something worth a hell of a lot more than five dollars.

There was pride in it.

But the best part wasn’t the boys.

The best part was watching their fathers.

Both dads looked down at their sons with this unmistakable look of pride.

You could see it.

Their boys had just encountered a complete stranger. Nobody had been standing over them telling them what to do. There wasn’t a lesson happening. There wasn’t some parent saying, “Now remember what we taught you.”

They saw money blowing away that didn’t belong to them.

And they spoke up.

That simple.

Both boys were “yes, sir,” “no, sir,” and “thank you.”

Good kids.

And I think anybody who has ever raised a child understands why that moment meant so much to those fathers.

You can teach your kids everything you think they need to know. You can talk about honesty, respect, doing the right thing, how to treat people—all of it.

But you never really know exactly what your child is going to do when you aren’t controlling the situation.

Especially when they encounter a stranger.

Especially when there’s something sitting right there in front of them that they could easily keep and probably get away with.

That’s when you find out if some of those lessons made it through.

Those dads found out.

And I got to watch it happen.

They both thanked me for giving the boys the money, probably more than they needed to, and I tried to dismiss it pretty quickly. I didn’t want the five dollars to become the point.

It wasn’t.

I wanted those fathers to enjoy what had just happened.

Their sons had shown them something.

Raising children is a process that takes well over twenty years, whether the kids like that idea or not. You spend years putting things into them without always knowing which parts are sticking.

These two dads got a little glimpse that day.

They’re off to one hell of a head start.

And those two young men reminded me of something else.

With everything we hear, everything we see, and everything people complain about when it comes to the next generation, it becomes pretty easy to convince yourself that something has gone terribly wrong.

Then two eleven- or twelve-year-old boys see a stranger’s money blowing across the ground and immediately make sure he gets it back.

No hesitation.

No discussion.

They just did the right thing.

So let me tell you something, America.

There’s hope.

There’s a lot of hope.

And sometimes you find it sitting on a bench in the shade, holding a five-dollar bill in its hand while its father looks down with pride.