It pays to take the time...

While driving home from someplace (can’t even remember where now!) on a Wednesday, we stopped at the stop sign at Tecumseh and Tippecanoe. As we turned the corner, I noticed something hanging from the stop sign itself. It looked familiar. I asked Jack if he lost a walkie talkie. He said yes – he and Jack B. had been playing with them on Sunday and laid one of the back of Jeff’s truck and then he drove off with it! We turned around, and sure enough, there was the walkie talkie hanging from the stop sign! Jeff told Jack that he needed to write a thank you note and put it back on the very thought out contraption holding up the w.t. Jack wrote “Thank you very much for finding my walkie talkie. Jack Patterson” and we put it up there. The next day, on Thursday, the phone rang. It wasn’t anyone I knew but I answered it. It was an old man who asked if I had a son named Jack Patterson who lost a walkie talkie. I told him we did. He said he was the one who found it and wanted to thank Jack for taking the time to write a thank you note. He said once he was with his 7 yr old grandson who accidentally walked in front of an older lady and he said “I’m sorry. Excuse me.” That lady then stopped him and told him how thoughtful he was and how young people these days don’t usually take the time to do those things. Since then, he swore he’d acknowledge those who did the same thing. So, he looked up Patterson in the phonebook and found a street in our subdivision and called. He had found the w.t. on Sunday and tried calling someone with it but there was no response. He then held onto it until Tuesday because it was raining. When he saw it was gone, he saw the note and stopped and picked it up. He lives on Fondulac Dr. He also said that he figured the letter writing was “Mom’s idea” (I told him it was actually Dad’s!) but that it really meant a lot to him. It was a very neat conversation! I told Jack all about it when I got off the phone and he smiled from ear-to-ear. I tried to use this as a way to teach him to be thankful and respectful. We’ll see what happens!