My wife and I were traveling north from Vancouver and decided to stop in Centralia for lunch at one of our favorite places, the Olympic Club. When we were called for our booth and were walking past others waiting there I heard someone say, "He's a Korean War veteran." I was wearing my Korea veteran ball cap.
I didn't think much of it and we proceeded to sit down and order our lunch. We were about halfway through when two people, masked, appeared beside our table: a man and a woman. Without any ado, the woman thanked me for my service and then surprised us by saying, "and we'd like to buy your lunch for you too."
We were astonished. My wife managed to say, "We'd like to know who our masked benefactors are." And the couple took off their masks. We exchanged elbow bumps and they were gone in an instant.
The waitress told us they were a local couple and always very generous.
I was very moved by this simple gesture. Not just by the generosity, but also by the open-hearted sentiment behind it. It gives me hope that, in this time when anger and suspicion seems to be dividing our country, that the kind of selfless generosity shown us by those two anonymous Centralians encourages me to believe that eventually American generosity and kindness will prevail once again over meanness and suspicion and we'll once again be one nation, indivisible.
Thank you masked benefactors, and thank you Centralia for your generosity. We'll pay it forward.
Jim Moody and Yvonne Mancini
Vancouver
