Today, thank a teacher

I was traveling with our CEO a few weeks ago and we got to talking about summer plans. Since then, I keep thinking of a conversation we had. Being back-to-school time and all, it's appropriate to recount this tonight, before I forget it. I'm sure this isn't 100% accurate and I made some interpretations, but I've got the main parts right:

My boss's boss's boss (a smart, powerful woman) was telling me about her husband's aunt, who is turning 99 this month. She sounds like a spunky lady who has done a lot of good in the world. A woman who had polio has a child, she never married and taught elementary school in Minnesota her whole life before retiring about 30 years ago.

Some time after retirement, she went out with a friend. Two quasi-eldery ladies out for lunch and an afternoon of window shopping. But when leaving the mall, they noticed two large African-American men standing in a corner looking at them, whispering. She thought it was strange, but they moved ahead. The men followed at a short distance.

This started to make the two women a bit nervous, so they ducked into a small shop and spent some time in there before leaving. But the men were still there. Though it made her uncomfortable, she stood her ground.

[This is the point in the story where I started to get nervous.]

One of the men walked up to them. She paused (and probably braced herself).

"Miss Moroney?" he asked, hesitatingly.

"Well, Davey," she said, inspecting then recognizing him instantly though she taught him decades beforehand. He seemed pleased that she remembered who he was. "What are you doing with yourself these days?"

"Oh," he said, dismissingly, "I play baseball." He told her how much she had meant to him and that he hoped she was well. They parted ways.

Days later, she was telling this story about the man who had initially frightened her to her nephew. She was admitting that she had become a bit too skittish and that she should have given him the benefit of the doubt.

Her nephew asked if she knew any more about the man who had taken the time to come up and thank an old teacher.

She said she didn't know what he was up to, but that Dave Winfield had always been a nice boy. He was a good student, and she hoped he was doing well.

Little did she know that, at the time, Dave Winfield was also the highest-paid player in major league baseball. A baseball player who took the time to wait...and wait...outside a store for an old teacher just to tell her how much she had meant to him.

Talk about making a difference.