Look For The Simple Things
by
Richard Leland
Many people, friends, neighbors, family help each of us on our
way to the future. Mr. Leland presents a chance meeting, involving a young college man who needed
help with a physics problem. Or, was it chance? Do we get help when we ask for it, knowingly or
not? This story suggests that the small things in life matter a great deal and are valued by all
intelligence.
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.............an Excerpt...............
When I was hired by the engineering
firm as a night watchman I was a second year mechanical engineering student. The engineering firm
controlled the construction of a section of the Indiana Toll Road in Gary, Indiana. I would go to work
at 3 in the afternoon and my shift was up at 11 pm. I regularly put my books, lunch, jacket and cap
at the far end of the large engineering office laying them on one of the three long picnic tables.
People used these tables to eat lunch inside the office.
I had exactly a dozen physics
problems for homework, and as the evening wore on, I was having trouble with one problem. I got
up and walked around the large room, thought about mopping the floor then remembered the fellow
who relieved me at eleven requested that I not mop. His rationale was he needed work to do to make
his shift time go faster.
So I walked and thought about the
problem. I didn’t understand it, didn’t have a solution to it, and it just didn’t make sense to me.
I walked back to my study area, sat and
stared at the problem in my textbook. Suddenly, I heard a shower turn on. The sound of splashing
water and a man humming came from the engineer’s locker room. I looked toward the other end of
this room and the door that hid the sounds. I thought, “How can that be possible? Someone came in
and I didn’t hear him?”
I wasn’t concerned; I wasn’t upset.
I thought someone had come in. They had been working late, saw me, and went on in to take a
shower. I guessed I was wrapped up in my problem.
I got up from the table, walked
across the room, and knocked heavily on the door but there was no answer. I opened the door, and
there was a man who was just finishing drying himself. He turned as he looked at me. He smiled as I
said, “Hi. I didn’t hear you come in.”
He continued drying his body, head
, shoulders, chest and legs as he said, “How are you?”
I could probably draw this person
because he looked like a very kind individual. I was comfortable in his presence. He had a well
developed physique, but I didn’t know him. I had not met him before.
I said “I don’t think we’ve met.
Have we?” And yet he seemed familiar.
He said, “My name is Simeon.”
Suddenly I felt I knew the man. He was no longer a stranger, and yet.... Who was this person? The question kept repeating in my thoughts.
End of the Excerpt from Look For The Simple Things
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