Act Put Smiles On Tired Faces

Last summer I spent two months working with a Spokane-based landscaping crew in Yakima on a newly remodeled school.

Transforming barren patches of rock and dirt into colorful flower beds and playing fields was not easy. Day after day, week after week, the mercury pushed the century mark as we raked and graded section after section of uneven ground. One week the crew and I laid sod on an entire football field. Using gigantic, 225-square-foot rolls, we toiled endlessly under the bright sun, sweat stinging our eyes, the skin wearing away on our knuckles.

Often I would work happy, feeling I was putting something back into the community. On other days, dusty brown slopes seemed to stretch out forever, and boredom settled into my mind by 8 a.m.

One muggy Friday morning, a huge 18-wheeler crammed with plants rolled up to our job site. Three of us began removing the 500-pound spruces and maples, followed by a few hundred Oregon grape and some pesky Barberry bushes. This was not an easy task. I ignored my aching back, nearly broken from dragging monstrous oaks to the back of the trailer so the bobcat could offload them. My face burned, my breathing became labored and heavy, and my wrists ached from shuttling plant pots along the 48-foot bed of the truck. My throat screamed for a cool, refreshing liquid.

Suddenly, at the back of the truck a middle-aged woman’s face appeared. I saw her only for an instant, but she smiled and handed us three cans of Sunny Delight.

We nodded politely, mouthing “thank you” over the noise of the machinery, and she smiled again, then left. I rolled the cold aluminum can up and down over my sweaty face before opening it.

As I stood there with a co-worker, chugging the Sunny Delight as if there were no tomorrow, I felt as if I could empty another 50 18-wheeler loads of plants and trees. We finished the job with smiles on our faces and a cool, refreshing aftertaste in our mouths.

If I saw the Good Samaritan woman again that summer, I was too caught up in my work to notice. She was probably a neighbor near the school.

People often classify Good Samaritans as rescuers or life-savers, but I met a Good Samaritan in Yakima who simply found joy in putting smiles on people’s faces.