This weekend I was twice reminded that not only are people filled with the brand of humanity, kindness and grace that I aspire to, but that it's real and outreaching...it you let it be.
Last Saturday, Dec. 5th, something startling and wonderful happened at The Aramingo Diner in Port Richmond.
The manager on duty, Linda, tells me that a couple in their 30s paid their check at the register, then asked the cashier to let them secretly pay the check of another couple in the dining room - a couple they didn't know.
"They just wanted to do it," she said. "They thought it would be a nice thing to do."
When the unsuspecting patrons went to pay their check, they were floored to find out that strangers had picked up their tab. So they asked the cashier to let them pay another table's check, also anonymously.
When that table's patrons approached the register, they, too, decided to pay the favor forward for yet another table of unsuspecting strangers.
For two hours, delighted customer after delighted customer continued to pay the favor forward. And a buzz began to grow. Not among patrons, who had no inkling what was going down at the register, but among the dining-room wait staff - Marvin, Rosie, Jasmine and Lynn - and other Aramingo workers moving in and out of the room.
The impact made an out-sized impression on the staff, who marveled at how that initial, single act of generosity kept repeating itself.
All in all, about 20 checks were "paid forward."
The lovely cycle finally ended, two hours after it began, when a lone diner, clearly unacquainted with the "pay it forward" concept, seemed befuddled that someone had picked up his check. He simply accepted the favor, grunted, and left.
Notes Linda, "He didn't even leave a tip."
So, on the off-chance that the first pay-it-forward couple at the Aramingo Diner is reading this, please know that your gesture of kindness didn't end when you walked out the door.
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