History: Good Samaritan
- good Samaritan (n) a person who voluntarily offers help or sympathy in times of trouble
Since I have been mayor, I have found the true meaning of this phrase. I am in my eighth year being mayor. I look back at the goodness that has bestowed us all as a community. Lately, in these tough economic times, I see good things happening all around us every day; at checkout aisle 8 at HEB, a man is 2 dollars short for his purchase. A woman behind him gives him the 2 dollars he needs and receives a “humble thank you” from him; At Taco Bell, a little bumper tap at the drive through led to a free lunch and a new friendship (and who knows, the way things were looking, eventually maybe even a marriage proposal!); a neighbor coming in to city hall to help pay his neighbor’s water bill; another neighbor seeing water coming out of a vacationing neighbors house shuts the water off, inspects the situation, calls a plumber, pays the plumber ($135.00), and cleans up the damaged area. When the vacationers came home, they reimbursed him, and didn’t have to pay the thousands in damage for three or four days of running water in the house. Today there is one person in town that is currently volunteering by helping a local restaurant acquire furniture for its new location. I think I will help them too. This is what it is all about. Now more than ever we need good Samaritans.
It is simply a beautiful gesture to see one give without asking for anything in return. I have come to conclude that this is just who we are. This is who Leander is! I have been in the mix as well over my tenure. Over the last 7 years, I have changed my sixth flat tire for stranded motorist; the last being for a Cedar Park woman in the HEB parking lot in Cedar Park. It was fun to see the look on her face when I handed her my card complete with a smudged thumb print as she realized that the mayor just changed her flat tire! Our corporate citizens as well as our volunteer members of our fire department have been active good Samaritans on a daily basis; HEB donated bottled water on a “at moment” basis when our fire fighters were fighting a grass fire north of town. The fabric of our community, due to all these little things that happen all around us on a daily basis has never been stronger.
Sometimes good Samaritan’s aren’t around. I dropped my phone in a parking lot last week and picked it up not realizing I also dropped my wallet. The person that found my wallet took the money, and charged hundreds of dollars on my charge cards. He was a young man, caught on video. He purchased one hundred dollar gift cards at CVS, Walgreens, and Wal-Mart. It hurts, but this is what I hope will happen: He buys food with the gift cards to feed his needy family; he gives the gift cards to those who need help more than he does; he purchases the medicine his children desperately need; and he gives a gift card to a stranger.
Bad things do happen to good people and vice-versa. I firmly believe that if a person is in need in Leander, chances are much better than not that a good Samaritan will be there to voluntarily offer help or sympathy in times of trouble. I hope after reading this article, people from Leander will write in to the Hill Country News and let me as well as all of us know all the good and wonderful things that are going on that I don’t see. Astonish me!
Pol. Adv. Paid for by John D. Cowman. Mailing Address: 1920 Holly Hill Drive, Leander, Texas 78741 (Tel. 512-789-5000).
John D. Cowman subscribes to the Texas ‘Code of Fair Campaign Practices” Act, TEC:[EC § 258-001-009] Texas Ethics Commission.